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In July, 2010, Kyle Strode, a forty-six year-old chemistry professor from Helena, Montana, ran the Missoula Marathon. Completing the 26.2-mile distance in two hours and forty-seven minutes, he placed fourth out of thirteen hundred and twenty-two finishers, and won the masters division, for entrants forty and older. Strode is among the most accomplished masters marathoners in Montana, with a personal best of two hours and thirty-two minutes. When he toes a starting line in his home state, he knows who is among the class of the field, and he's particularly aware of other masters competitors. The Missoula course, which is mostly flat, passes through rangeland and forest, crosses two rivers, and in its final miles offers a tour of the city's tree-lined neighborhoods. Early in the race, Strode broke ahead of his usual rivals, and never saw them again. The second masters runner to cross the finish line, Mike Telling, from Dillon, Montana, trailed Strode by nearly four minutes. At the awards ceremony, however, they learned that Telling had actually placed third. The official runner-up was Kip Litton, age forty-eight, of Clarkston, Michigan. Litton, who had been at the back of the pack when the race started, began his run two minutes after the gun was fired. He had apparently made up for lost time.
Since the early nineties, technology has made it possible to clock runners with precision and to track them at measured intervals, yielding point-to-point "split" times. Runners attach to their shoelace or racing bib a transponder tag that marks how much time has elapsed when a checkpoint is reached. Often, sensor-equipped checkpoint mats span the running lanes. USA Track & Field, the governing body for major running competitions, mandates that "gun," rather than "chip," times determine the official results in sanctioned races. But, as a practical matter, this rule generally applies solely to élite lead runners. In a field of thousands, it might take an entrant several minutes just to reach the starting line, so it seems only fair that the diligent middle- or back-of-the-packers' order of finish is adjusted to reflect the chip time. In Missoula, the marathon's organizers made this allowance.
Strode didn't have to teach that summer, and so he had time to scrutinize the race results. Because Litton came from out of state, he hadn't been on Strode's radar, and Litton hadn't stuck around to claim his award. Strode learned from Telling that he hadn't paid Litton any mind as he passed him in the homestretch, and that he had no memory of being passed by Litton earlier in the race.
A wealth of online data about competitive running makes post-race analyses relatively easy. Several days after the marathon, Strode visited a Web site that displayed photographs of runners along the Missoula route. Most participants appeared in several shots, each of which indicated, down to the second, when it was snapped. Strode noticed something curious: although Litton had posted a half-marathon split time, and there were four images of him taken at or near the finish line, Strode couldn't locate him anywhere in the preceding twenty-six miles.
In the Missoula photographs, Litton wore sunglasses and a black baseball cap, so Strode had only a general sense of what he looked like: white, clean-shaven, and about five feet ten, with an athletic build but not the classic lean and loose-limbed runner's physique. Athlinks, a popular online database for endurance races, sharpened the picture somewhat: in 2000, shortly before turning forty, Litton ran his first race, a five-kilometre event in Flint, half an hour from his home. His average pace was seven and a half minutes per mile: a good novice result. He ran the same race a year later and improved his pace by almost forty seconds per mile, and a year after that he whittled off fourteen more seconds, to a respectable six minutes and thirty-five seconds per mile. In 2003, he finished eleven races, including his first marathon, in Jacksonville, Florida.
In all, during the previous decade Litton had run in more than a hundred races, including twenty-five marathons. His time in Jacksonville, 3:19:57, qualified him for the Boston Marathon, the following April, where he covered the course in 3:25:06—a 7:50-per-mile pace. He returned to Jacksonville in 2006 and, for the first time, recorded a sub-three-hour marathon, winning in his age group. Four months later, he broke the three-hour barrier again, in Boston.
For a man or a woman of any age, a marathon performance of under three hours is considered a mark of distinction. (Typically, about six per cent of the field at the Boston Marathon runs this fast.) In the year before Missoula, Litton had averaged a marathon a month, with sub-three-hour clockings in each. He'd travelled to New Mexico, Idaho, New Hampshire, Arizona, Florida, Virginia, Missouri, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, and South Dakota. Eight times, he'd come in first in his age group, and in the West Wyoming Marathon, a week before Missoula, he was the over-all winner.
Exploring the Web sites for each of Litton's marathons occupied Strode for several days. Not every race was as well documented as Missoula's, but wherever professional race photographers had been present he hunted for shots of Litton among other runners. He found images of him at the end of a course, only twice at the beginning, and never in between. And there was the chip-gun differential: with rare exceptions, Litton started two to five minutes behind the leaders. In a crowded field, wouldn't a swift runner want to avoid weaving through clusters of slower runners?
A Google search led Strode to a Web site for the dental practice of Kip Litton, D.D.S., in Davison, Michigan. It also led to Worldrecordrun, a site, conceived and maintained by Litton, that chronicled his peripatetic habits. "World record" apparently referred to his goal of running sub-three-hour marathons in all fifty states. The quest had formally begun at a marathon in Traverse City, Michigan, in May, 2009, and Montana was his fourteenth destination. On the site, Litton had posted his finishing times and a recap of each race. He explained that his training regimen and diet, along with nutritional supplements, had "allowed me to maintain my rigorous schedule and even improve my recent performances." His tone was alternately hortatory ("Imagine Inspire Impact!") and emotional ("I have been blessed with the greatest wife and kids a guy could ever ask for").
"Who is Kip Litton?" he asked. "I am a lifelong resident of Michigan and an alumnus of both The University of Michigan and UM Dental School. Currently I live in the town of Clarkston and have an office in Davison. I began running in the year 2000 to lose weight. I am an ordinary guy with an extraordinary desire to make a difference. At the onset of this mission I had run 11 marathons, all in the range of 3:35 down to 2:55. . . . After superficially committing to this mission, I soon discovered the devil was in the details. . . . Was I born to do this? Hardly. As a high schooler, I did play tennis, but HATED to run. My teammates and I never ran as far as the coach told us to or thought we had."
There was another, poignant motivation behind "the mission." Litton and his wife, Lisa, an attorney, were the parents of two boys and a girl. The youngest, Michael, was born, in 2001, with cystic fibrosis. A congenital illness, it most commonly clogs airways in the lungs, making breathing difficult. The average life expectancy for cystic-fibrosis patients is about thirty-eight years. Litton wrote, "The goal is to raise a QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS for CF during the course of the mission." His site featured the logo of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and people were invited to make donations by clicking on a link to the organization's Web site, by writing a personal check to Worldrecordrun, or by sending money to a PayPal account.
"My hope is that I can inspire others to take inventory of their talents, find their passion and pursue it relentlessly to effect a cause or impact their community," Litton wrote. "This is MY mission. It is the only thing I feel passionately about enough to ask you to PLEASE consider a donation to this worthy cause. I will also be bold enough to ask you to please alert others to this site or send a link to your e-mail list. When all is said and done, no one will care about the endless hours of training, my detailed workout logs or fancy awards."
The compassion that Strode naturally felt upon learning of a child's illness, along with admiration for Litton's readiness to put his body on the line to raise funds for Michael's future and for medical research, was tempered, he told me, by his belief that Litton "had cheated in almost all of his 2010 marathons."
On July 24, 2010, Strode received an unexpected inquiry from Jennifer Straughan, the Missoula race director, who asked him to look at a photograph of a runner wearing bib No. 759. It was Litton. "There is some question as to whether he was seen along the course," Straughan wrote. "He finished in a time similar to you so theoretically you would have noticed him."
While Strode had been immersed in what he'd assumed was his own private Kip Litton obsession, the official timer at Missoula had been contacted by his counterpart at the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon, in Deadwood, South Dakota, where Litton had turned up the previous month. Photographs taken in Deadwood showed him crossing the starting line fifth from last and finishing in 2:55:50, putting him first in his age group and in third place over all. The fourth-place finisher protested: he'd been running third at the halfway mark and said that no one had passed him after that, an assertion bolstered by the fact that most of the remaining course was a trail only six feet wide. Litton had registered a half-marathon split, and the Deadwood timer was skeptical of the protest against him—"I was trying to prove Litton was legit," he told me—but he changed his mind after determining that Litton had, improbably, run the second half eleven minutes faster than the first. In addition, he found photographs of Litton only at the start and the end of the course. Deadwood disqualified Litton, and Straughan followed suit in Missoula.
Strode, who in a later Web post described his mind-set as "sucked in, fascinated and pissed off," broadened his investigation. He sent an e-mail to Richard Rodriguez, who on the Web site of the West Wyoming Marathon was identified as its race director; Litton had a listed winning time there of 2:56:12.
"I'm writing to ask about the winner of your marathon a few weeks ago, Kip Litton," Strode wrote. "He was recently disqualified from the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon for cheating (not running the whole course). . . . I don't know the guy—I just hate cheating in running. I wonder whether he may have had a legitimate performance at your race or whether he may also have cheated in Wyoming."
Two days later, Strode received a response: "Wow, that's quite a scenario! It would have been very unlikely for the same thing to have happened at our race, as there were only 30 participants and the lead 2 runners ran almost the entire race together. I have not received any complaints. I will keep my ears open though. If there is an update, send it my way. Take care, Richard."
Strode began to wonder if his suspicions were misplaced, but he kept investigating. At the Providence Marathon, in Rhode Island, where Litton had finished first in his age group, photographs showed him wearing shoes and shorts at the end of the course that were different from those he was wearing at the beginning. (A costume change at Deadwood had involved shoes, a hat, and a T-shirt.) In the Delaware Marathon, Litton had finished first in his age group. After being prompted by Strode, the race's director, Wayne Kursh, found that, among the finishers, Litton alone had failed to register split times. On an out-and-back portion of the course, Kursh had taken photographs of the top runners at the turnaround point—but Litton was not among them. He also failed to find images of Litton elsewhere on the course.
Kursh had a blog, and on August 6, 2010, he posted a blind item about Litton titled "Another Rosie Ruiz?"—a reference to the scammer who was briefly heralded as the winner of the women's division of the 1980 Boston Marathon, before it was determined that she'd jumped onto the course less than a mile from the finish. Kursh wrote in a follow-up that he had been exchanging concerns with other race directors, adding, "I smell a rat."
In an e-mail exchange initiated by Kursh, Litton claimed that photographs of him would be hard to find, because his shirt had covered his racing bib. He added, "Wasn't there a timing mat at the turnaround?" Kursh ultimately decided to disqualify him, explaining, "From your comment here it is pretty obvious that you have NO idea where the timing mats were on route. They definitely were not at this turn-around point."
On occasions when Litton responded to such pointed challenges, he never did so in a hostile or nakedly defensive manner. After a disqualification, he simply deleted the result and the recap from his Web site, as if he had never registered for the race. His default demeanor was equable mystification.
Clarkston, Michigan, is an exurban town within commuting distance of both Detroit and Flint, which ranked first and fourth, respectively, in the latest Forbes survey of America's most dangerous cities. Those grim statistics don't seem to impinge on Clarkston. The subdivision where Kip and Lisa Litton live with their three children—large brick and stone houses on oversized lots, with expansive lawns and S.U.V.s parked in circular driveways—is threaded with undeveloped woodlands and streams. In Davison, twenty-two miles north, Litton's dental practice occupies a one-story brown brick building on a commercial strip, tucked behind an auto-repair shop, next door to a drive-through bank, and a short sprint from the requisite conveniences (McDonald's, Jiffy Lube, Taco Bell). A few miles south of Flint is the comfortable suburb of Grand Blanc, where Litton grew up. In 1979, he graduated from Grand Blanc High School. A strong tennis player—as a junior, he won a state championship—he is remembered as bright and charismatic, with smart-aleck tendencies. "The first party I had after I bought a house, I invited him," a high-school friend told me. "Part of his way of getting attention at the party was to eat all the food. Kip does odd, silly things for attention. But they're harmless."
In 1990, two years after graduating from dental school, Litton started working in Davison with a dentist who was nearing retirement, and in 2001 he acquired the practice. Today, Litton's office has a Web site, which notes that, "when the General Motors Company cut benefits for retirees, Dr. Litton devised a cost-sharing plan that allowed patients without benefits to continue receiving quality dental care." One day a year, Litton says, he provides free dental care to underprivileged children; each Halloween, he offers to buy back patients' candy for a dollar a pound, then has it "shipped overseas to the troops, along with toothbrushes." A Google review of Litton's practice, posted earlier this year, said, "After trying several other dentists in the area, I was so delighted to find Dr. Litton. . . . Great friendly staff, painless, lowest costs, no interest payment plans and Dr. Litton is SO funny! I finally have my fantastic Hollywood smile. I have already convinced several of my friends and relatives to come to this office, despite almost an hour drive. My search is now YOUR gain."
Litton had attracted local media attention for his running achievements. After the 2010 Boston Marathon, the Davison Index noted that Litton was "the first finisher from mid-Michigan and the first over 40 from Michigan." Around the same time, the Flint Journal ran a story with the headline "DAVISON DENTIST HAS TRANSFORMED HIMSELF FROM SEDENTARY MIDDLE-AGER TO SUCCESSFUL MARATHONER." The article traced a stirring trajectory: One day, about a decade earlier, Litton, fifty pounds overweight, got on a treadmill, hoping to run three miles. "I made it a little over a third of a mile before I got so dizzy that I started to fall off the treadmill," he told the reporter, Bill Khan. "I was completely out of shape. It was just ridiculous." Fast-forward: "Litton now regularly races marathons, not content to merely finish 26.2 miles but to post times that few runners his age can match." (Khan learned of Litton, he told me, when a stranger sent him an e-mail saying that "this guy has gotten himself in shape and is trying to raise money for charity.")
Litton told Khan, "I'm starting to know every crack and pot hole on that route from Hopkinton to Boston. Once you go to Boston, there's something special about it. Having all 26 miles with people lined up on both sides of the road, screaming their lungs out for six hours, is such an unusual experience and super cool."
Wayne Kursh's "I smell a rat" blog post drew the attention of Michael McGrath, a former assistant track and cross-country coach at Haverford College. McGrath had competed at Boston nine times—including the year Rosie Ruiz cheated—and his best finish was 2:49:19. Although Kursh hadn't mentioned Litton by name, McGrath soon identified him, by comparing the lists of finishers at Missoula and Delaware. Like Strode, he found Litton a more compelling impostor than Ruiz, in no small part because his methodology was so tantalizingly elusive. Somehow, he had exploited the running community's faith in the very systems—transponders, chip times—that had been adopted to prevent cheating.
"I am like a dog who cannot let go of a bone," McGrath wrote to Kursh. He spent days anatomizing Litton's races, dissecting first his 2010 showing at Boston. Litton had hit all the splits, at five-kilometre intervals. This suggested that running a sub-three-hour marathon was theoretically within his capacity. Unless, McGrath argued, the microscope was brought into tighter focus.
The Boston course has a reputation for toughness: the Newton hills, which runners encounter between miles sixteen and twenty-one, owe their notoriety to the fact that they must be climbed when the energy reserves of runners are greatly depleted. How was it, McGrath asked, that on the most leisurely stretch—just before the halfway mark, near Wellesley College—Litton's pace was a full minute slower than it was in the hills? Litton's Boston race in 2009 had the same incongruities.
McGrath learned that, in February, 2009, Litton had run a fifteen-kilometre race in Florida. According to the split times, his pace during the second half—five minutes and twenty-four seconds per mile—was almost two minutes faster than during the first half. Such a divergence is called a "negative split," and a variance of that magnitude is as common as snow in Miami. Nor did Litton's past performances indicate an ability to run a five-and-a-half-minute pace. The official timer of the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon, reflecting upon Litton's purported acceleration, told me, "I don't know any Kenyans who could do that."
Not long after McGrath began his research, he decided to go public, sort of. His medium was LetsRun, a Web site devoted to news about élite track and distance running. One of LetsRun's salient features is its "World Famous Message Boards," where most participants use pseudonyms, and the content quality runs the expected gamut (factual, analytical, sophomoric, inanely combative). McGrath, using the handle Anonymous.4, posted an item under the heading "Kip Litton," referred to Litton's disqualification at Missoula, and solicited feedback from anyone who might have more information.
One responder was Scott Hubbard, a former collegiate runner and high-school coach who was a familiar figure on the central Michigan running scene. Hubbard measured and certified courses, often worked as a race announcer, and wrote for running publications. His awareness of Litton dated to October, 2009, when Litton's five-member relay team was disqualified from winning the Detroit Free Press Marathon Relay. Litton had recruited four topnotch masters runners, only two of whom he'd known previously, paid everyone's entry fee, and assigned himself the second leg of the relay. The members of the second-place team were stunned by the race result—especially their second-leg runner, who had received his baton in first place, knew that no one had passed him, yet learned after handing off to his third-leg teammate that they no longer held the lead. With encouragement from Litton's mortified teammates, who felt potentially implicated, the second-place team protested, leading to the disqualification. Afterward, Hubbard told me, he initiated a correspondence with Litton, trying to "pin him down on how he cut the course."
Litton was initially evasive. But after about a week of questioning he offered an explanation: "Finally, he came down to 'Yeah, I must have cut it short somewhere to come in with that time.' I asked him where that might have happened. I knew the course, because I'd measured it. He named the place and said, 'I must have followed someone.' And I said, 'No, you didn't follow anyone. You cheated.' "
A few weeks later, Hubbard came across the following item in the online newsletter of Michigan Runner, a bi-monthly publication:
Reader Brian Smith passes along several great performances by Kip Litton:
"I wanted to relay some info about a couple of recent performances that I would consider great. I see a dentist in Davison who's name is Dr. Kip Litton. We often talk running when I am there. Recently he had told me about a couple of marathons he was planning to run. When I asked about them afterwards, he just said things like, 'I was just glad to finish' and 'Well, I didn't injure myself!' I know that he is a good runner, so I looked up the race results. Now I also know how humble he is.
"It turns out that he finished 3 marathons in less than 2 months, all under 3 hours. He placed 2nd overall & 1st master in The New Mexico Marathon Sept 6 in 2:57:54, 5th overall & 1st master in The City of Trees Marathon Oct 4 in 2:55:45 and 14th overall and 1st in the division in The Manchester City Marathon Nov 1 in 2:54:06.
"I think that could be considered worthy of a mention. I didn't see them listed in your newsletter so I thought I would pass them along."
Hubbard sent another e-mail to Litton, on the pretext that he wanted to get in touch with Brian Smith. When Litton responded that he couldn't recall all his patients, Hubbard pressed harder. "The question was posed to him pointedly: 'Who's Brian Smith?' " Hubbard later wrote on LetsRun. "He didn't say he was a patient of his. He didn't put up much of a fight when told it was felt he wrote the note."
During the fall of 2010, Litton entered marathons in Rochester, New York; Portland, Maine; Huntington, West Virginia; and Charlotte, North Carolina. In Rochester, he posted a chip time under two hours and fifty-eight minutes, winning the masters division. Photographs at Rochester showed him wearing a gray-green sweatshirt, a cap with a bright-yellow logo, and no visible racing bib. At the finish, he wore a different shirt and hat. This proved too much for Hubbard, who issued an ultimatum to Litton: take down the Worldrecordrun site or risk an exposé in Michigan Runner, for which Hubbard wrote a column.
Worldrecordrun was gone within days. (According to Litton, the site had become more trouble than it was worth, and Hubbard's threat wasn't a factor.) Cathy Zell, who at the time was the executive director of the local chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, told me that she didn't know of any donations that had been obtained through the link on Litton's Web page. "We started getting phone calls saying, 'I don't know if he's legit,' " she said. "I never had proof one way or the other." Litton, she added, "basically is the one who said, 'This isn't giving you guys a good name.' " Laurie Fink, a spokesperson for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, says that since 2004 the Litton household has contributed twenty dollars to the organization.
Even after Litton dismantled the site, he continued to enter races. On December 11, 2010, at the Thunder Road Marathon, in Charlotte, his split times suggested to the race director that he had cut the course and not been overly clever about it; within forty-eight hours, he'd been provisionally disqualified. Just as swiftly, Litton responded with a pious defense, portraying himself as the victim of "a witch hunt" and "a smear campaign . . . ridiculous things which are ALL completely un-true." He confessed only to a failure to be remarkable: "I have legally practiced dentistry for over 20 years and have 3 kids. I have never been arrested. I have never even been sued. I have never cheated in a race. I am not perfect, but probably the worst thing I have ever done is get a parking ticket. I know, boring."
Meanwhile, the mockery on LetsRun's message boards, as Litton pointed out, was "taking on a life of its own." In late December, he wrote to Weldon Johnson, one of the founders of LetsRun, complaining about his treatment. He acknowledged his disqualifications at Detroit, Missoula, and Delaware, and floated fuzzy explanations for each. ("I inadvertently turned too soon & cut part of the course. . . . I was dq'd as I should have been, but only accidentally.") He added, "I have served on my Dental Ethics Board"—in fact, he had not—"so I realize that people should take cheating seriously." But the situation had got out of control. "If these accusations held any water, it would have certainly forced me to stop racing. As you know, I have not. I have nothing to hide."
The connoisseurs of Litton's audacity were galvanized. They stared at course maps: He could have cut it there—or there. Rich Heller, a former collegiate runner, collated findings on an ancillary site, Study of Kip Litton Running, including links to videos, such as one of Litton walking across the finish line at the P. F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon, in January, 2010. (Chip time: 2:51:21.) "For some races the evidence is circumstantial," Heller wrote. "For others it's [a] SLAM DUNK." For the conspiracy-minded, it was a juicy peach, and LetsRun contributors adopted handles like Lone Gunman and Zapruder. The paramount question was "How?" Did he have an accomplice? Did he drive from point to point? Ride a bicycle? Devise digital subversions?
Jennifer Straughan, the Missoula race director, was as mystified as anyone. "It's expensive," she told me. "He flies all over the country, rents cars, plans in advance, has to figure out how many chip mats there are, how you deal with those. Think about how hard you have to work to not run a race."
The debunkers zeroed in on the West Wyoming Marathon, the one race that Litton had supposedly won outright. One of them came across a Web cache of the race's defunct home page, which included this caveat: "With a low entry fee, there will be no goodie bags, no shirts, no photographer and no finishers medals."
On January 11, 2011, a poster called Liptodakip wrote, "Still curious about the west Wyoming marathon. 29 runners total. And he won it. Anyone know anything about it? Is it a real race? The main page is down and now the results are gone. (was up last week). did he make up an entire race? That would be bold!"
Yes, it would. And, yes, he did. LetsRun exploded: West Wyoming was Litton's pièce de résistance, and even his most indignant accusers had to concede their perverse admiration. In this race, the key to winning was ingeniously uncomplicated: Make the whole thing up! For his fabricated marathon, Litton had assembled not only a Web site but also a list of finishers and their times (plus name, age, gender, and home town), and created a phantom race director, who responded to e-mail queries. It occurred to Kyle Strode that six months earlier, when he had raised questions about Litton to "Richard Rodriguez," the reply ("Wow, that's quite a scenario!") had omitted a crucial detail. When Richard Rodriguez looked in the mirror, Litton looked back.
In concocting the fantasy, someone had gone so far as to create a post-race testimonial for the Web site Marathon Guide. "Small race, with only a couple dozen runners," a post there said. "Bring your own gels; only water is available on course. Out-and-back route. No spectators to speak of. Sounds like a downer, but the view and the town are so worth it! Cross Wyoming off of your list and visit one of the most beautiful towns in the US at the same time."
This was attributed to "G.S. from Nebraska," which matched one listed entrant, Greg Sanchez, of Lincoln, age fifty-four. "Cross Wyoming off of your list" referred to running marathons in all fifty states. More people summit Mt. Everest each year than celebrate running a marathon in a fiftieth state. LetsRun's forensic beavers established that it made no sense for Sanchez to refer to crossing states off a list, because, according to a database at Marathon Guide, this was his one and only marathon. The same was true of the other finishers besides Litton: twenty-eight men and women, from twelve states, with tellingly unimaginative names (Joseph Smith, Kevin Scott, Sue Johnson, Karen Nelson). This lapse notwithstanding, someone had invested considerable time and effort to create Athlinks profiles for several of the fictional runners.
The next day, two more imaginary races, in Orlando and Atlanta, were identified among Litton's Athlinks performances. Inspection of the race Web sites revealed that they were hosted by the same Internet server as the sites for the West Wyoming race, for Worldrecordrun, and for Litton's dental practice.
Along with outrage and stupefaction, the LetsRun community expressed gratitude: "This is the craziest thing I have ever read in my life. Ever. . . . WOW. . . . Better than porn. . . . Is it possible that Kip Litton doesn't actually exist, and it is all an incredible ruse?"
Litton certainly existed, but his bizarre story posed a conundrum: Was he just a guy with Olympic-calibre chutzpah, or did he suffer the certitude of self-delusion? After his provisional disqualification at the Charlotte marathon, in December, 2010, his appeal to the race director, Tim Rhodes, brimmed with wounded resentment. He invoked the tragedy of his son's illness. ("I have a 9-year old son with terminal Cystic Fibrosis. I run to raise funds to help cure this vicious disease.") As Rhodes explained to Scott Hubbard, without definitive proof of a deception "our hands are tied." In the absence of witnesses who had seen Litton leave and reënter the course, Rhodes reversed the disqualification.
Once Litton had insinuated a few dubious times into the top running databases, he must have convinced himself that he could celebrate his sham successes on his Web site without attracting hostile scrutiny. But the close call at Charlotte seemed to change his game. For the time being, it would be Litton's final race appearance. Pressed via e-mail by Hubbard and others, he denied that he had cheated or had intended to deceive—and offered justifications that left one in awe of his gift for just making shit up. He provided this account of what happened at West Wyoming:
The West Wyoming Marathon did actually exist. It was set up to accommodate our family trip to that area. In planning our vacation, I launched the website for the race, which was set up with race day registration. Over a dozen people indicated that they would likely come & run. I had a local resident lined up to help out. Race morning I got quite a surprise when no one showed up. I ran anyway. As the only entrant I placed both first and last. The first issue of the results contained only my name. A tech savvy friend convinced me this would look ridiculous & he could add some additional names. After thinking that this would in no way harm any other actual person, I agreed. So yes I am absolutely responsible for that. I regret making this snap decision and I realize I should not have ruined something that was meant to be legitimate.
Ben Millefoglie, a Web designer in Michigan, set up Litton's various sites and entered all updates to them. He told me that Litton had misled him into thinking that the West Wyoming Marathon was legitimate, adding that the racing data had been provided to him, via e-mail, by "Richard Rodriguez."
In January, 2011, Litton was disqualified from yet another race: the 2009 City of Trees Marathon, in Idaho. The following month, Hubbard extracted from Litton a promise to disclose in advance any races he entered, so that he could be monitored.
"I look forward to being monitored," he wrote, in an e-mail to Hubbard. "I realize that this isn't absolute vindication, but it is certainly a good first step. . . . I am committed to continue my goal of running marathons in every state and raising funds for my charity. In time, I believe the questions will disappear. I welcome any and all that wish to join me."
Later that month, he said, he would run the Cowtown Marathon, in Fort Worth. When the date arrived, he was missing. The afternoon before the race, he sent race officials this e-mail: "I was in a car accident and am unable to run the marathon. Could I please have my packet and shirt sent to me? Thanks."
Whether or not a car accident occurred was of no consequence. For a few months, at least, Litton wouldn't be going anywhere in the reality-based running community. The LetsRun message board continued to simmer with sarcasm about Litton's exploits, though the ad-hominem attacks were occasionally counterbalanced by sympathetic posts. ("He is intelligent, selfless, witty, charitable, modest, caring, generous to a fault. . . . Loved by his patients and adored by his friends and family.") One poster purported to be a runner as well as a nurse "at the hospital where Dr. Litton's child has been given just a short time to live." Another described a predawn encounter, in which Litton had put himself through a gruelling speed workout at a high-school track. "Quite a Story" was the handle of someone claiming to be a journalist. After interviewing "dozens of people," the journalist had "discovered a shocking new side to this tale"—the implication being that Litton was innocent—and welcomed information from all comers. An e-mail address was given, I wrote immediately, and I'm still waiting for a reply.
Over a period of months, I did exchange many e-mails with Litton, but he refused to speak or meet in person. My questions were mainly biographical or running-related. His responses were verbose, well written, and cleverly obfuscatory in a way that left little room for doubt.
Last fall, a message, posted by someone using the handle ActuallyThisIsTheWayItIs, appeared on LetsRun:
Some of us are runners, and we fully understand how races operate. Kip has been very open about addressing accusations with us. They have all been discussed and he has provided logical and credible explanations, in many cases backed by evidence and/or witnesses. He has shared with us email correspondences with reporters and race directors that contradict posts here that pass for gospel. We are quite satisfied. We don't want to put words in his mouth but the chances are less than zero that he will personally respond on a forum where people are anonymous.
I wrote to Litton, asking whether he'd seen the post and suggesting that we "help each other." I wanted to speak with this blogger, I said, and was eager to read excerpts from the correspondence cited in the post.
Litton replied:
No I didn't see it. How long ago was it from? I actually don't know who it is yet, but it certainly narrows it down—I'll have to check around. I will not be able to disclose any names unless it is ok with them. I will say you have piqued my curiosity—but I will not make the mistake I made many months ago when I checked out LetsRun. Engaging in negative rhetorical sparring with anonymous strangers may be entertaining for some, but it is not where I choose to spend my time.
"I am running Boston," Litton wrote to me, on March 7, 2012. "Training has been hit & miss. I have had nearly PR"—personal record—"runs mixed with times when I was unable to run at all." I assumed that "unable to run" referred to the auto-accident injury that had been his pretext for not running the Cowtown Marathon.
His only race within the 2012 Boston qualifying calendar had been the Charlotte marathon, in 2010, and attached to that performance was a bold asterisk. Nevertheless, the Boston Athletic Association, aware of Litton's problematic history, had checked with Tim Rhodes, the Charlotte race director, and been told that the result stood.
Two weeks before Boston, I asked Litton to give his expected finishing time. "If all goes well, 2:47," he wrote. "If not, a bit slower."
I planned to be in Boston, I said—two of my sons would be running—and suggested meeting. Given Litton's prior elusiveness, I was surprised when he said, "How about after, that way I can introduce you to a few people also." The odds of that happening, I suspected, were roughly zero. Still, I appreciated his gamesmanship.
Race day was Monday, April 16th. For weeks, the prevailing sentiment on LetsRun had been that Litton would not show up. Yet, at some point over the weekend, either he or someone authorized by him had picked up his racing bib at the marathon's headquarters. I gleaned this from LetsRun—a runner in Boston had volunteered the information—rather than from Litton, who for several days had ignored my e-mails.
As with most major marathons, the size of the Boston field—more than twenty-two thousand runners—required a staggered start. Some two hundred wheelchair and élite female runners were first out of the gate, with the rest of the participants organized in "waves" and "corrals," according to their qualifying times. There were three waves, each with nine corrals of roughly a thousand runners, and Litton had been seeded in wave one, corral two. By coincidence, so had my son Reid and a couple of other runners I knew.
Monday morning was cloudless and unseasonably hot, heading to the upper eighties. I found a seat in a shaded section of the grandstand at the finish line, and felt open to possibilities. I might be on the brink of my first live Kip Litton sighting; a flock of green flamingos might happen by. My anticipation lasted less than an hour into the men's race. I'd signed up for a mobile-phone service that offered text-messaged ten-kilometre, half-marathon, and thirty-kilometre split times. After receiving 10K results for my sons and another runner in Litton's corral, but nothing for Litton himself, I allowed a decent interval before concluding that he was most likely in Davison, Michigan, drilling teeth. A phone call to Litton's office confirmed this.
My oldest son, Jeb, who is thirty, somehow made friends with the heat and ran his best marathon: just under three hours and four minutes. Reid, the faster qualifier, finished a couple of minutes behind him. Post-race, I found them in a designated meeting area across the street from the John Hancock Tower. We hung out there for an hour or so, as runners in varying states of elation and walking-woundedness wandered past, wearing ribboned medallions. This was what Litton was missing: the bonhomie and collective uplift of one of the world's great athletic events, and the rewards that come to anyone who goes the full distance and crosses the finish line—never mind how long it takes.
Eventually, Jeb and Reid's perspiration dried sufficiently to allow for an exchange of manly hugs, and then I went to catch a plane.
Shortly before eight o'clock the next morning, Litton parked his metallic-blue GMC sport-utility vehicle (vanity license plate: DDLOVER) outside his dental office. I was standing at the building entrance, and as he turned a corner I introduced myself. "No, no!" he said, and moved past me into the building. I followed him, through a glass vestibule and past the reception desk. He went inside his office and closed the door. As I was about to knock, he opened it and said to his receptionist, "Call the police. It's a trespasser." I said that I was leaving, and retreated to the Flag City Diner, down the street, where I ordered scrambled eggs and began drafting an e-mail to Litton.
He was in a jam of his own devising, I wrote, and I wanted him to have the opportunity to explain how it had come about. He did not reply that day, but the next evening he offered to meet with me the following day, after work.
Litton chose a Wendy's a few miles from his home. Arriving before I did, he took a seat at a corner table, with his back to the wall. Hanging above the table was a framed photograph of Dave Thomas, the departed founder of Wendy's, bearing the caption "When it comes to VALUES, I've never been one to cut corners."
Litton wore a blue windbreaker over his work uniform: a black V-neck tunic, a red T-shirt, loose-fitting gray cotton pants. Tanned and clean-shaven, he had fluffy sandy-blond hair that fell across his forehead, brown eyes, and generically handsome Nordic features. Across the table, at last, was the man at the center of one of the strangest controversies in amateur sports history. Our common aspiration, I assumed, was that this conversation would yield a counter-narrative to the caricature of the heinously unscrupulous Kip Litton suggested by the less genteel posters on LetsRun. In addition to "Why?," the question I most hoped Litton would answer was "How?"
He told me that he was born in 1961, the third of four children, in Royal Oak, a Detroit suburb, and moved to Grand Blanc when he was seven. His father, an engineer, worked for General Motors, and his mother was a homemaker. They were frequent churchgoers, but not devout. Summer vacations were station-wagon excursions, typically to historic sites. His adolescent cohort had not been earnest strivers—"There were a lot of kids in my neighborhood that were delinquents, normal delinquents"—but that changed after his father introduced him to tennis. ("We went out and he said, 'Hey, why don't you try this?' And he probably let me beat him, and that got me interested, like, 'Hey, I'm good.' . . . That took me away from the crowd I was with.") Academically, he was "a decent student, but I really had no direction." When a high-school guidance counsellor suggested dentistry, he responded that it was "the one occupation for sure that I can eliminate."
Litton arrived at the University of Michigan in 1979, planning to major in engineering. His most enduring impression was of feeling daunted by the ambitions of his dorm neighbors. "Just hanging around those people, I felt like if I wasn't going to be a neurosurgeon I would be a complete failure," he said. "I would be the least successful person—I probably still am the least successful person—who lived on my hall. So that inspired me to do something more with my life." Engineering, he said, had too few women majoring in it, so at the end of his sophomore year he switched to pre-dental. (If other factors had guided this career turn, he didn't mention them.)
In 1983, he matriculated at the University of Michigan Dental School, and five years later he completed his degree. At twenty-eight, he married Lisa Hoscila, whom he'd met on a blind date nine years earlier. She had a law degree and a job at a firm not far from Davison. After commuting for a few years to a dental office in Saginaw, Michigan, he joined the practice in Davison that he eventually took over. The older dentist who had started the practice supplemented his income by working as a salesman and distributor for Amway, the multi-level marketing company, and he recruited Litton. During the next several years, Litton said, his Amway income—from direct sales to consumers or to his own "thirty or forty" new recruits—at times reached into the six figures, surpassing his professional income.
Amway still generated a lot of income for him, he said: "I don't want to say exactly, but in the thousands every month. And that's way down from where it was."
Throughout its existence, the company has defended itself against allegations that its marketing program is essentially a pyramid scheme; in 2010, it agreed to a fifty-six-million-dollar settlement in a class-action suit accusing it of exactly that, along with fraud and racketeering. When I asked Litton whether he'd ever been disillusioned with Amway, he said, "No. And I know a ton of people gave it a bad rap." His wife had joined him in Amway, he said, and it made for "a nice diversion—something we could do together. She made friends in the business, I made friends in the business."
Their first child, a son, was born in 1995, followed by a daughter in 1997. When their younger son, Michael, arrived, in 2001, he immediately received a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis and remained in the hospital for weeks.
"He knows exactly what's going on with him," Litton said. "But he can't possibly understand the scope of it. . . . He has to take tons of pills every day. He won't take pills in front of other people except family members. He has a feeding tube. There's a lot of breathing apparatuses he uses. And he will not do what he is supposed to do if there are people other than our family members over at the house. He just desperately wants to fit in."
To sidestep questions about various running performances, Litton often invoked his personal tribulations. Some of the indignities that he said he'd recently suffered seemed straight out of high school, circa 1977: his tires had been deflated on several occasions, his house and his mailbox had been egged, threatening and profane messages had been left in the mailbox. His family felt unsafe.
These stories reminded me of a series of messages that had been posted anonymously on LetsRun. One said:
My wife's friend worked at Dr. Litton's office and was recently let go. She was telling my wife about all the things that have been happening recently due to the cheating scandal. . . .
In addition to his business failing, Dr. Litton's wife was so embarrassed and it caused so much strife that they have separated. His one kid got in a fight at school in response to the other kids taunting about the cheating and was suspended.
And another:
Perfect—we have him just where we want him.
Personal life destroyed—check. Business destroyed—check. Family destroyed—check. Kids—check. Just think what could happen if we keep the pressure on even more.
In fact, Litton and his wife were still together. And the dental practice was doing fine.
I asked Litton, "What happened in your life to get you into this situation?"
"Can you be a little more specific?"
His credibility was being seriously questioned, and the underlying facts were troubling.
"I don't know what facts you're talking about," he replied. "But the facts I've heard and seen, most of them are inaccurate."
As Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" played on the Wendy's stereo system, he elaborated: he had never deliberately done anything wrong, never left a race course and reëntered at a different point, never received money through Worldrecordrun, and never posted anything on LetsRun; had no idea who the anonymous people might be who posted in his defense, and no clue who might have posed as a nurse claiming that "Dr. Litton's child has been given just a short time to live." His delayed starts, he later added, were merely part of "a marketing gimmick," on his Web site, to entice potential donors, who could pledge a particular sum for every runner he passed in a race. It was "a friend" who had posed online as "Richard Rodriguez"—despite the fact that Litton had used that alias in a previous race. Regarding his mid-race shoe change at Deadwood: "I was doing my warmup, and I got too far away from the starting line. As I was running back toward the starting line . . . I still had on my trainers. I couldn't get back to where my shoes were, and then back to the start of the race, so I just started the race in those shoes. And, as I ran down the race course, when I passed my shoes I stopped and swapped them out."
Throughout our discussion, his tone remained steady and uninflected. He neither frowned nor smiled, and made no attempt to ingratiate. For a teller of tales, he was oddly unbeguiling.
He acknowledged that he had been disqualified from several races, but only for unintentional infractions. He conceded only to having "been careless, not paying attention." When it came to specific disqualifications—say, the 2009 Detroit Free Press Marathon Relay, where he had cut the course so maladroitly that he wound up in front of the pace car—he offered deflection, not explanation. In a follow-up e-mail, he said that he had taken a wrong turn, adding, "How mentally handicapped would someone have to be to think that cartoon-like scenario would work? Did your research reveal this absurdity? It's an excellent anecdote that could be reenacted for a scene in a top Hollywood comedy film."
Usually, when you interview a fabulist, there comes a moment when you can visualize his or her mental gears churning. It took a long time with Litton, but he finally rose to the challenge, and began expanding his alternate universe on the fly. Early on, when Scott Hubbard had challenged Litton about the identity of "Brian Smith"—who had written to Michigan Runner to extoll his dentist's achievements—Litton had claimed ignorance. But when I pressed him about it he paused, then said, "Now I remember more about that! I think that guy turned out to be someone who owed me money, and was hoping I didn't pursue him, by buttering me up."
Litton told me that he had protested several disqualifications that he felt were unjust. And at Missoula in 2010, rather than being disqualified by race officials, he had disqualified himself at the finish line, informing a race official that a leg injury had forced him to take a shortcut.
"So there's no way you would have been in contention for an award at Missoula, right?" I asked.
"Right," he said. "O.K., what about it?"
I handed him copies of two e-mails. The first, from him to Jennifer Straughan, the race director, was sent six days after the marathon: "Hello, Very nice race. I enjoyed it immensely. I was wondering if there was any award that I missed? I had to catch a flight right after the race. Thanks. Kip Litton, M 45-49." The second was Straughan's reply, which said, in part, "In reviewing our records for the top finishers of the 2010 Missoula Marathon, we notice that you do not appear in photos along the course. . . . I regret that we had to remove you from the finishers listing."
All a misunderstanding, Litton said.
The e-mail had been sent to the director of the Missoula Marathon—what was the misunderstanding?
"O.K.," he said. "But I probably got it from an e-mail address that—I probably clicked on the wrong one or something. I don't know. Because I disqualified myself. I told them at the race that I did not run the whole race."
"Why would someone who disqualified himself ask about an award?"
"It was probably another race."
"But this was the week after Missoula."
"There were other, smaller races that I ran."
(In subsequent e-mails, Litton told me that he had witnesses to his self-disqualification—but none, unfortunately, who weren't members of his family, and he couldn't provide the name of a race official who would confirm his finish-line story.)
Litton never removed his jacket. At first, this made me apprehensive, as it seemed that he might at any time stand up and bolt for the exit. As the conversation dragged on, though, I became the interlocutor eager to be on his way. Litton's story could have been a small but admirable one: an out-of-shape Midwestern dentist who, on the cusp of middle age, had transformed himself into a competitive marathoner. But he had insisted on transforming himself further, inventing a heroic avatar, "Kip Litton," that couldn't be sustained. The ruse, quite possibly, had begun with a noble intention: a father's desire to be an inspiration to his youngest child, or perhaps to his entire family. (Litton's friends told me that he was a devoted husband and father.) But whatever glory he felt was surely short-lived. Not only had he become a consuming object of contempt in one of the blogosphere's more obsessive neighborhoods; his family and neighbors had learned that the online tribunal had judged him a fraud. A scenario that once might have been explained away, with self-deprecating contrition, as a foolish prank had become something much darker: the story of a man running away from himself.
One of the LetsRun sleuths' most impressive unearthings was a photograph taken near the thirty-kilometre checkpoint of the 2010 Boston Marathon. It depicted six runners wearing singlets or short-sleeved shirts, their racing bibs attached, on pace for sub-three-hour performances. At the left edge of the frame, slightly cropped, was Litton. The others were clearly in brisk mid-stride. Litton appeared to be walking, or slowly jogging, along the shoulder of the road, and he wore a long-sleeved black shirt, black sweatpants, a black baseball cap, and shades. He had no racing bib showing. He was credited that year with a time of 2:52:12.
At Wendy's, we did not discuss the photograph. But, a few weeks later, I attached it to an e-mail and told him, in so many words, "Gotcha." No non-élite runner in his late forties could run a 2:52:12 marathon—an average pace of 6:34 per mile—in mild weather wearing that kind of clothing. (Before the finish line, the long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants had been swapped for a T-shirt, shorts, and a different hat.) By not showing a bib mid-race, Litton was counting on not being photographed, or at least not being recognized as a race entrant. Sticking to the shoulder allowed him to get close enough for his chip to register at the thirty-kilometre checkpoint.
Based upon his own track record and my interviews with Michigan runners who had competed against him, I told him, it seemed unlikely that he'd ever run a marathon in under three hours, with the possible exception of a 2:58:08 at Jacksonville in 2006. His other probably kosher performances, I figured, were Jacksonville in 2003 (3:19:57), Richmond in 2004 (3:08:14), and Boston in 2004 (3:25:06) and 2005 (3:23:23)—all entirely creditable.
My smoking gun turned out to be no such thing. In his response, Litton directed me to photographs that I'd overlooked: images of him at the fifteen-kilometre split.
"The bib is still underneath but I am in the middle of the road," he wrote, triumphantly and accurately. "If I was trying to 'avoid photos' or 'not be recognized as a race entrant' why would I be in the middle of the road this time between other runners?"
The online accumulation of still photographs and video footage of Litton—walking up to starting lines when the field has already taken off, his racing bib obscured, or crossing finish lines differently attired—documented the bookends of an elaborate deception. Undocumented was what happened in between. For a year and a half, Litton's scourges on LetsRun had struggled to pinpoint the specifics of his methodology. If he travelled between checkpoints by car, he must have had an accomplice—perhaps more than one. But how did they negotiate the inevitable street closings that kept traffic far from the race course? Had Litton figured out how to hack the timing system? According to professional race timers, this was impossible. Moreover, whatever category of abnormal psychology Litton might belong to, it didn't seem to be "evil genius."
Litton's profile on Athlinks listed several completed duathlons: races that combined running and biking. While Worldrecordrun was still extant, it had a page where he reported his annual mileage totals for both running and biking. (He owned a Felt bike.) So a bicycle it surely was. But where were those photographs? No matter what Litton's connection might have been to the anonymous posters who defended him online, his pursuers were confounded and exasperated most by what remained unsaid. It came down to this: at the Boston Marathon, the oldest, most prestigious, and most professionally managed event on the American racing calendar, Litton had hit every split, changed his clothes along the way, and broken three hours. No one but Litton could say how he did it.
The marathon, no matter where it takes place, remains, as ever, a solitary pursuit in which every runner ultimately competes against himself or herself. Whatever drove Kip Litton was an entirely different battle with himself, one that quite possibly escaped his understanding. One thing, though, he grasped perfectly. Like the most dazzling of magicians or the most artful of art forgers, by withholding the secret of how the illusion worked he retained a power uniquely his own: the spoils of his humiliation, perhaps, but a knowledge that no one was about to take away. ♦


text: please may you help me. i have designed a BIRT report using Eclipse and i want to how can i access the report and display it using the Java application. sort of calling the report to be displayed. i have tried it and recieved and error message("text Editor property not available"

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sure, the third-generation iPad's improved resolution and graphical processing capabilities may change the way its owners do everything from watching iTunes videos to reading e-books. But if history is any guide, it'll be gaming applications that really put the new hardware through its graphical paces.
Or will it? While iOS developers are obviously excited about the additional power the new iPad will put in their hands, we have begun hearing concerns as to just how much the new tablet will really revolutionize the overall market for iOS gaming, especially in the near term.
More pixels, more power?
The most noticeable improvement that the new iPad will bring to iOS games comes through the new "retina" display resolution of 2048 x 1536 across its 9.7 inch display. Some observers have already compared the jump to going from standard definition TV to HD, but a few iOS game developers are going even farther than that. "As a matter of fact, even the next generation consoles won't be able to match the new iPad in terms of crisp visuals as those are 'limited' to the [1920 x 1080 pixel HD] resolution of TVs,' Michael Schade, CEO of Galaxy on Fire 2 HD developer Fishlabs Entertainment, told Ars. "The superior experience of graphics beyond HD will be a game changer."
Volker Schönefeld, CTO of Tower Madness developer Limbic Software, echoed the sentiment that the new display will provide developers "a fast way of significantly improving the visual quality with only a little effort on the developer's part. It's like activating a really high anti-aliasing setting on your PC—just a lot better."
But despite the upgraded quad-core GPU in the new iPad, Schönefeld suggested that the tablet would have "similar performance characteristics" to the dual-core GPU on the iPad 2, as far as raw polygon-pushing power for 3D games. Essentially, Schönefeld argued, the added power from the new GPU will be largely cancelled out by the need to display more pixels on to that super-high-resolution screen. "What this means from a game engine perspective is that we've got enough power to cover the added pixels, so we get smoother edges, greater detail and cleaner lines for free," he told Ars. "We will be able to render the same excellent graphics the iPad 2 is capable of, but now with incredible new clarity."
There's some disagreement on that point, however. An Epic Games respresentative told us that the mobile version of the Unreal Engine is being updated to add graphical features like mobile color grading, depth of field, shader bloom and animated materials to take advantage of the new iPad's improved hardware. The company has announced it'll be using these features in an updated version of Infinity Blade meant for the new iPad, as well as the upcoming Infinity Blade Dungeons.
Backward compatibility
Regardless of the actual impact of the new iPad's improved graphical capabilities, some developers might be slow to create games specifically designed to take full advantage of the hardware. This is for one reason, and one reason only: the hundreds of millions of existing iOS device owners that are also part of the iOS game market.
"I believe that games that exclusively target the new iPad will be a small niche for the foreseeable future," Popcap's Bejeweled franchise business director Giordano Contestabile told Ars. "One thing to take into consideration is that to reach the largest number of potential players, games will need to support previous versions of the iPad, which means that compromises will have to be made in terms of performance. Most games will look at supporting all iPad versions, which means that in most cases users of the new iPad will enjoy games that sport a higher resolution, but aren't different from those available on other devices."
Schade agreed that "to be commercially successful, gameplay has to remain pretty much the same even on a new iPad," but pointed out that clever use of engine technology could get around the problem. Schade said Fishlabs' proprietary game engine can scale in-game graphics to easily "support at full quality the full range from legacy devices to the new iPad." In this way, Schade said he sees any potential iPad gaming market fragmentation as a beneficial "entrance barrier for competitors."
Of course, this kind of fragmentation only really matters for the minority of iPad games that are going to try and push the new hardware to its absolute limits. "Most [current] apps are still on the level of the slowest device on sale, which is the iPhone 3GS," Limbic's Schönefeld pointed out. "Most successful apps on the iOS platform are pretty far from really leveraging the hardware. They are made by very small teams, and the hardware is so powerful these days that we don't think most games approach the hardware limitations."
For the makers of these kinds of simple games, the new iPad might expand the market is some unexpected ways. "What's particularly exciting from our point of view is that most older iPads will be sold or handed down in the family, which will create a larger market of casual players," Popcap's Contestabile said. Those lucky enough to have a new iPad will still see improvements in updated versions of these graphically underpowered games, he added, especially in popular casual genres like hidden object games and areas like user interface design.
Then again, some developers think it still makes sense to aim high, regardless of whether all players will be able to take advantage of the improvements. "In our experience, it always makes sense to support the latest Apple hardware as it gains market share extremely quickly," said Torsten Reil, CEO of Backbreaker Football developer NaturalMotion Games. "It's pretty straightforward to support the relatively few iOS device varieties, [though] obviously, on older, lower-end devices we're not able to run the latest graphics or simulation effects."
A 3D revolution?
So will the new iPad quickly open up a new world of high-end, 3D games to iOS, or will its effect on the market be more muted? Developers we spoke to had mixed feelings on the subject.
"The real question, I think, is what the majority of iOS players actually want to play," Popcap's Contestabile said. "In that sense, I think that casual and social games will continue to dominate the charts and benefit from a much larger volume of players. ... I think some hardcore, high-end games that showcase the capabilities of the new iPad will be developed and commercialized, but it will take a while for that to become a viable option for the mass market."
Others think the change in the market will be more immediate. "We'll be seeing a whole wave of high-end 3D titles coming to iOS devices this year," NaturalMotion's Reid said. "So, an investment in high-end content pays off—it will be a major trend of 2012." Fishlabs' Scahde agreed that "there will be a very strong demand for HD games on the new iPad" right out of the gate, a development he said was particularly exciting given the kinds of high-end games his company produces.
But Limbic's Schönefeld said that while the transition might take a while, an increased focus on high-end games on the iPad was somewhat inevitable as more and more people buy the new tablet. "Eventually, it'll probably end up like the PC platform, where virtually all modern games are 3D," he said. "That said, there is always going to be a market for well-made 2D games that focus on gameplay over glitz."
Listing image by Image courtesy of Fishlabs


text:
If You Dont Believe Watch This: Recent Mass UFO / Alien Sightings In The World! (Some Scary Shyt)
Courtesy of @_Kritta and @kmicash_taylor of KMI
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text:
"Secrest offers vividly detailed accounts of Parisian bohemia. . .She takes us on a fascinating, up-to-the-present tour of the artist's posthumous history. . . particularly gripping in her description of the end of his life. . . Secrest's book both preserves and alters [Modigliani's] legend. Modigliani's story is by far the most interesting thing about him. It is certainly the most complex thing, and Secrest lets the complexity unfold in complicated ways, probing it with a historian's eye, dramatizing it with an advocate's passion."
—Holland Cotter, The New York Times Book Review
"[Secrest is an] adept biographer. . . a masterly account."
—Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker
"An engaging writer and highly accomplished biographer…the man [Secrest] portrays is far more complicated and interesting than his popular image."
—Suzanne Muchnic, Los Angeles Times
"With a keen nose for canards and unprecedented access to primary materials, exemplary biographer Secrest revisits the life and achievement of artist Modigliani. . . Every aspect of Modigliani's life takes on new meaning, including his iconic portraits. . . Astute and gripping."
—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)


text:
Part-Time Work; Still Just for Women?
MOTHERS changing the conversation @ www.MothersOughtToHaveEqualRights.org
Approximately 2/3 of the part-time workforce is female. This is no coincidence. As women continue to perform most family carework, looking after others may drive down the hours they have available for paid employment. Lacking access to child care, or lacking affordable child care remains a significant problem in many households. The presence or absence of another parent or adult in the house can be a factor, as can the work obligations of that second adult, if present.
It doesn't have to be this way. A recent New York Times article reports that the Netherlands is seeing an important shift in part-time workers, as more fathers settle in to a four day work week. Gender stereotypes are breaking down, as first women, and now men, are supported by both the law and cultural attitudes favoring greater parity between paid work and family time. An accountant interviewed for the article said: "More men want time with the family, but without giving up their careers. And more women want careers, but without giving up too much time with the family." Consequently, 75% of Dutch women work part-time, and 23% of Dutch men do. Another 9% of Dutch men work a 40 hour week in four days. Promotions and professional success are still realistic goals, and employers attract and retain talent by offering flexibility in work hours and location.
Could it happen here? There's no reason why not. Changing our thinking, our attitudes and expectations is where it starts. Difficult, obviously, but not impossible. It's a question of how badly we want it.
'Til next time,
Your (Wo)Man in Washington


text:
Fashion ecommerce platform
Tailored for fashion's speed, experience, and personalization
Bobby KimCo-Founder of The Hundreds
"It's nice to have someone on the backend that handles the infrastructure and how the sales are moving while we can concentrate on what's really important for us, which is documenting our lifestyle and telling the story of The Hundreds."
Experience how The Hundreds merge culture, fashion, and commerce on Shopify Plus
Look brilliant in every size
Shopify Plus' meant-for-mobile storefronts are designed responsive from the ground up
Optimize the look and feel of your site across devices easily and quickly. Go beyond beautiful to make mobile-first conversions intuitive with branded checkouts and payment gateways like Apple Pay, PayPal, or Shopify Pay's one-click confirmation. Merge in-store retail with mobile browsing to capture and engage your customer at every step in the purchase process.
Chat with an expert to get started.
Create multiple storefronts from New York to Milan
International ecommerce to leverage local trends, seasons, and languages
Make your mark on ecommerce's soon-to-be $355 billion worldwide clothing and accessories industry. Rely on the speed of dual content delivery networks for global visitors. Personalize your sites to meet customers where they live and unearth new international opportunities driven by data.
Never let them see you sweat
With zero outages on fashion's peak buying days, you can process thousands of transactions a minute without worrying downtime
Shopify Plus gives you the confidence and control to experiment, test new markets, update products, and maximize customer value.
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 3 million hits per second
- 10,149 peak orders per minute
- 99.98% uptime
Uri MinkoffCEO and Co-Founder at Rebecca Minkoff
"What we loved about Shopify Plus is how easy it is for everyone in the organization to interact with the platform. It's a lot less complicated and geared toward mobile-first enterprise ecommerce with social and mobile payments built right in."
Immerse the senses
Craft dazzling online and offline experiences as unique, expressive, and personal as your brand
A fully customizable frontend to showcase your style is just the start. Create online look books, true-to-life videos, and even interactive content through AR and VR technology. Then, bring it to life. Shopify's universal POS powers pop-up shops, product drops, and live events. Sync products, inventory, and customer data automatically across all your channels and expressions.
Do more than advertise and engage
Sell natively on the networks where fashion lives: Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram
Create a shoppable Instagram feed onsite. Get conversational with Shopify Plus' chat integrations on Messenger or Kik. Choose from thousands of professionally built apps or our curated Technology Partners to leverage influencers, user-generated content, and reviews. Unite everything in a single backend no matter where you style, sell, and connect.
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Shopify Plus gives you exclusive access to Launchpad, the first tool designed to unleash demand-generating campaigns at scale
Create invitation-only and limited-release product collections. Push selected styles to over 20 different sales channels simultaneously. Schedule roll outs and theme updates while monitoring your analytics in real time.
Ben FrancisFounder of Gymshark
"We have huge, huge traffic spikes because we have such a strong core consumer and fan base. They all hit the [previous] website and it just crashed. When we moved from Magento to Shopify Plus, rather than taking months and months to replatform it took weeks. We could concentrate on what we're really, really good at, which is our customers, our brand, and our product."


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- Every Wednesday until May 29, 2019|6:30pm – 8:30pm
All 7-12th graders are invited to join us Wednesdays for Youth Group from 6:30-8:30pm. Youth Group provides an opportunity for students to grow closer to God and to each other through fun, honest discussion and biblical teaching. Most Wednesdays, students will participate in a game or crazy mixer, hear teaching directed at their lives, and spend time in a small group with one of our awesome leaders. We would love to see you there!


text:
After two more visits, I (finally) realized what these rectangles might be: Corrections. A carving "typo," maybe a slip of the stone carver's tool or a simple misspelling, was chiseled out and the correction (or not) was carved in the newly blank spot.
|Joshua Cummins (d. 1840)
|Joseph Pool (d. 1849)
|Arory S. Gibson (d. 1848)
Now I may be wrong, but these look like corrections to me. What do you think?
Williamsville Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio


text:
In a truly bizarre press conference, North Korea's coach Kim Kwang Min had an excuse for his team's performance that...I don't think I've ever heard before.
"On 8 June our players were hit by lightning," Kim said. "More than five" were hospitalized, and "the goalkeeper and the four strikers were most affected and some midfielders as well."
Needless to say, Kim continued, the players were not at 100 percent and as a result "their strategy could not be implemented" today.


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Combined Modality Therapy for Patients With With HIV and Stage I, Stage II, or Stage III Anal Cancer
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00324415
Recruitment Status : Completed
First Posted : May 11, 2006
Results First Posted : September 17, 2015
Last Update Posted : June 5, 2018
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- Study Results
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cisplatin and fluorouracil, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Monoclonal antibodies, such as cetuximab, can block tumor growth in different ways. Some block the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. Others find tumor cells and help kill them or carry tumor-killing substances to them. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Giving cisplatin, fluorouracil, and cetuximab together with radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells.
PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving cisplatin, fluorouracil, and cetuximab together with radiation therapy works in treating patients with HIV and stage I, stage II, or stage III anal cancer.
|Condition or disease
|Anal Cancer
|Biological: cetuximab Drug: cisplatin Drug: fluorouracil Radiation: radiation therapy
|Phase 2
- Determine the 2-year local failure rate in patients with HIV-associated stage I-IIIB anal carcinoma treated with cisplatin, fluorouracil, cetuximab, and radiotherapy.
- Determine the objective response rate (complete and partial), progression-free survival, relapse-free survival, colostomy-free survival, overall survival, quality of life, and overall toxicity in patients treated with this regimen.
- Characterize the effect of this regimen on the underlying HIV condition by describing changes in viral load, CD4 counts, and the incidence of opportunistic illnesses, including the development of AIDS during and in the first year after treatment.
- Evaluate the effect of this regimen on anogenital human papilloma virus (HPV) infection and anal cytology.
OUTLINE: This is an open-label, multicenter study.
Patients receive cetuximab IV over 1-2 hours on days 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, and 35*, fluorouracil IV continuously on days 1-4 and 29-32, and cisplatin IV over 1 hour on days 1 and 29. Beginning on day 1, patients undergo concurrent radiotherapy to the primary tumor 5 days a week for 5-7 weeks. Treatment continues in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.
NOTE: *Patients receiving 7 weeks of radiotherapy also receive cetuximab on days 42 and 49.
Quality of life is assessed at baseline, at the completion of study treatment, and then at months 3, 6, 12, 24, and 36.
After completion of study treatment, patients are followed periodically for 5 years.
PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 47 patients will be accrued for this study.
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Actual Enrollment :
|45 participants
|Intervention Model:
|Single Group Assignment
|None (Open Label)
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|Phase II Trial of Combined Modality Therapy Plus Cetuximab in HIV-Associated Anal Carcinoma
|Study Start Date :
|September 2006
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|April 2014
|Actual Study Completion Date :
|May 2016
Experimental: CMT with Radiation Therapy
All patients will receive combined modality therapy (CMT) with 2 cycles of cisplatin and 5-FU chemotherapy, given concurrently with radiation therapy. CMT consists of:
Biological: cetuximab
400 mg/m2 IV Day -7 (1 week before the cycle 1, Day 1 cisplatin/5-FU and RT), then 250 mg/m2 IV Days 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 36 and 43 (a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 doses of cetuximab will be administered, including the loading dose)
Other Name: Erbitux
Drug: cisplatin
75 mg/m2 IV on Day 1 (cycle 1) and Day 29 (cycle 2)
Other Name: Platinol
Drug: fluorouracil
1000 mg/m2/day by continuous intravenous infusion on Days 1-4 (cycle 1) and Days 29-32 (cycle 2)
Other Names:
Radiation: radiation therapy
Irradiation to tumor site and inguinal nodes beginning on cycle 1, Day 1 cisplatin/5-FU (minimum 45.0 Gy [5 weeks if given on schedule and without interruption], maximum 54.0 Gy [6 weeks if given on schedule and without interruption). IMRT may be used at the discretion of the treating physician.
- Local Failure Rate at 3 Years [ Time Frame: 3 years following treatment discontinuation ]Patients will be classified into two groups for purposes of primary endpoint analysis: failure or no failure at 3 years (in the primary analysis, patients lost to follow-up prior to 3 years will be considered failures). For the secondary endpoint of objective response, patients will be classified as responders
- Progression-free Survival [ Time Frame: 1 year ]Progression-free survival at 1 year is the percentage of patients who are alive and have not experienced progressive disease, defined as at least a 20% increase in the sum of the longest diameter of target lesions, taking as reference the smallest sum longest diameter recorded since the treatment started, or the appearance of one or more new lesions.
- Relapse-free Survival [ Time Frame: 1 year ]Percentage of participants who are alive and have not experienced progressive disease and have not relapsed
- Colostomy-free Survival at 1 Year [ Time Frame: 1 year ]Percentage of participants who are alive and have not had a colostomy
- Overall Survival [ Time Frame: 1 year ]Percentage of participants who are alive at one year
- Quality of Life [ Time Frame: 1 year ]EORTC QLQ-C30 Global Score at 1 year. The EORTC QLQ-C30 is a validated questionnaire that evaluates quality of life. The global score is an overall score for quality of life that ranges from 0 to 100. Higher scores indicate between quality of life
- Toxicity [ Time Frame: 90 days following treatment discontinuation ]Delayed toxicities are defined as toxicities that occur over 90 days following treatment completion
- Changes in CD4 Counts During and for 1 Year After Completion of Study Treatment [ Time Frame: 1 year following treatment discontinuation ]Change in absolute CD4 counts from start of treatment to 1 year after completion of study treatment
- Incidence of Opportunistic Illnesses [ Time Frame: 1 year following treatment discontinuation ]Incidence of opportunistic illnesses, including the development of AIDS during and for 1 year after completion of study treatment
- Anogenital Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Infection and Anal Cytology [ Time Frame: 6 months following treatment discontinuation ]
- Objective Response Rate (Complete and Partial) [ Time Frame: 3 years following treatment discontinuation ]Number of participants with complete and partial responses based on the RECIST criteria
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 120 Years (Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Histologically confirmed stage I-IIIB invasive anal canal or perianal (anal margin) squamous cell carcinoma, including tumors with any of the following nonkeratinizing histologies:
- Basaloid
- Transitional cell
- Cloacogenic
Documented HIV infection by 1 of the following:
- Antibody detection
- Culture
- Quantitative assay of plasma HIV RNA
- Karnofsky performance status 60-100%
- Absolute neutrophil count ≥ 1,500/mm³
- Platelet count ≥ 100,000/mm³
- Hemoglobin ≥ 10 g/dL (transfusions, epoetin alfa, or myeloid growth factor support allowed provided blood counts are stable for ≥ 2 weeks prior to study entry)
- Creatinine ≤ 1.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN) OR creatinine clearance > 60 mL/min
- AST and ALT ≤ 3 times ULN
- Bilirubin ≤ 2 times ULN
- Not pregnant or nursing
- Negative pregnancy test
- Fertile patients must use effective contraception
- No acute active, serious, uncontrolled opportunistic infection
- No other prior invasive malignancy diagnosed within the past 24 months, excluding in situ cervical cancer, anal dysplasia or carcinoma in situ, nonmelanoma skin carcinoma, or Kaposi's sarcoma that has not required systemic chemotherapy within the past 24 months
- No peripheral neuropathy > grade 1
- No severe or poorly controlled diarrhea
- No medical or psychiatric illness that would preclude study requirements
No prior chemotherapy or radiotherapy for this malignancy
- Prior radiotherapy for another condition (e.g., Kaposi's sarcoma) allowed
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00324415
|United States, California
|Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center
|La Jolla, California, United States, 92093-0658
|UCLA Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE) Center
|Los Angeles, California, United States, 90095-1793
|United States, Massachusetts
|Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
|United States, Missouri
|Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital - Saint Louis
|Saint Louis, Missouri, United States, 63110
|United States, New York
|Albert Einstein Cancer Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
|Bronx, New York, United States, 10461
|United States, Pennsylvania
|Joan Karnell Cancer Center at Pennsylvania Hospital
|Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19106
|United States, Washington
|Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Medical Center
|Seattle, Washington, United States, 98101
|Study Chair:
|Joseph A. Sparano, MD
|Albert Einstein College of Medicine
|Principal Investigator:
|Lisa A. Kachnic, MD
|Massachusetts General Hospital
|Principal Investigator:
|David M. Aboulafia, MD
|Floyd & Delores Jones Cancer Institute at Virginia Mason Medical Center
Documents provided by AIDS Malignancy Consortium:
Publications of Results:
|Responsible Party:
|AIDS Malignancy Consortium
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00324415 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
U01CA070019 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
CDR0000440065 ( Other Identifier: NCI )
|First Posted:
|May 11, 2006 Key Record Dates
|Results First Posted:
|September 17, 2015
|Last Update Posted:
|June 5, 2018
|Last Verified:
|May 2018
stage I anal cancer
stage II anal cancer
stage IIIA anal cancer
stage IIIB anal cancer
squamous cell carcinoma of the anus
basaloid carcinoma of the anus
cloacogenic carcinoma of the anus
Anus Neoplasms
Rectal Neoplasms
Colorectal Neoplasms
Intestinal Neoplasms
Gastrointestinal Neoplasms
Digestive System Neoplasms
Neoplasms by Site
Digestive System Diseases
Gastrointestinal Diseases
Intestinal Diseases
Anus Diseases
Rectal Diseases
Antineoplastic Agents
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic
Immunosuppressive Agents
Immunologic Factors
Physiological Effects of Drugs
Antineoplastic Agents, Immunological


text:
Nellis AFB is three miles away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That means you can stand in one spot and hear a Nascar thundering down the course and a B-2 bomber coming in for a landing at the same damn time.
Is there anywhere else in the world where you could regularly see and hear these two machines together?
(Hat tip to Nighthawkwill!)


text:
John Wragg might have completed more IRONMAN races than anyone on the planet (he's done over 180 to date), including qualifying for the IRONMAN World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii nine times, but he still counts his last experience on the Big Island as one of his most cherished triathlon moments.
In order to compete alongside his wife, Elizabeth Model, Wragg got himself an entry through the IRONMAN Foundation Annual Kona Auction.
"It was the 'aha' moment of my triathlon career," Wragg says. "I think some people perceive triathletes as self-centered and selfish—when you can give back to the communities who put on the events it makes a big difference."
In addition to crossing the finish line in Kona with Model, Wragg also received a letter from the general manager of one of the beneficiaries of his donation—the Greater Seattle YMCA.
"I been a member of the Y for 55 years," Wragg says. "I learned to swim there through a Saturday morning program. I worked at the Y in high school and university. Finding out my donation helped them made a huge difference in my race experience."
Each year, more than 100,000 athletes vie for slots to the IRONMAN World Championship presented by GoPro at qualifying IRONMAN events worldwide, while only approximately 2,000 make it to the starting line on race day. For the last 13 years IRONMAN, through the IRONMAN Foundation, has raised money for a variety of charities through the IRONMAN Foundation Annual Kona Auction, which provides athletes the opportunity to bid on one of four coveted slots to the IRONMAN World Championship, taking place on October 10, 2015 in Kailua-Kona Hawai`i.
Bidding for the second slot is now open.
Each slot begins with a minimum bid of $10,000. One hundred percent of the money from the final winning bids of the four slots support the efforts of the IRONMAN Foundation's Community Fund Program. Since its inception, the IRONMAN Foundation has provided over $32 million in grants and donations to many deserving global, national, regional and local nonprofit organizations.
In addition to receiving the opportunity to compete at the 2015 IRONMAN World Championship, IRONMAN Foundation auction winners will receive private athlete registration in Kona and four VIP packages, including race-day passes and invitations to race-week functions.
Funding for the auction does not have to be generated through one source, as fundraising efforts are acceptable; however, funds are due once the auction ends. Funds in excess of the retail cost of the slot may be tax-deductible in the United States. International bidders will need to locally verify tax deductibility (bidders should consult their own tax advisors to determine deductibility and whether any limitations apply). All proceeds go to the IRONMAN Foundation, which in turn makes donations to the beneficiary organizations. The IRONMAN Foundation covers all administrative costs to ensure all monies raised will directly benefit the selected charities.
More information on the IRONMAN World Championship Annual Kona Auction is available here.
Follow the IRONMAN Foundation at www.ironmanfoundation.org.


text:
| For The Love of Meowth!
First broadcast
English themes
Japanese themes
For The Love of Meowth! (Japanese: さよならロケット団!ニャースの恋!? Goodbye Rocket-dan! Love of Nyarth!?) is the 178th episode of the Diamond & Pearl series, and the 644th episode of the Pokémon anime. It first aired in Japan on May 27, 2010 and in the United States on October 23, 2010.
|Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.
We join our heroes in the middle of yet another battle with Team Rocket, and Ash sends them blasting off quickly. However, Meowth is separated from Jessie and James during the flight. Unconscious, Meowth is found and taken care of by a young girl named Mamie, along with her beautiful Glameow. When Meowth awakens, love is in the air!
After rejoining Team Rocket, Meowth decides they should catch Glameow as a gift to "da Boss," which of course is just an excuse to spend more time with his new crush. After they succeed in catching the Pokémon, Meowth and Glameow sneak away. What's more, Meowth leaves a note for Jessie and James, telling them that he's leaving Team Rocket! So our heroes, Mamie, and Jessie and James all vow to find Meowth and Glameow.
When they catch up to the two Pokémon, more fierce battling ensues as Meowth is determined to protect Glameow...and his newfound devotion gives his Fury Swipes unbelievable power! Meowth fends off every attack, until, all of a sudden, Glameow evolves into Purugly! This turning point causes Meowth to fall out of love with the suddenly much less attractive Pokémon, and he returns to Team Rocket. Mamie gets her Purugly back, and our heroes resume their travels to Sunyshore City...where Ash will be battling for his eighth Gym Badge!
|This section does not yet meet the quality standards of Bulbapedia. Please feel free to edit this section to make it conform to Bulbapedia norms and conventions.
The episode begins with a battle between Jessie's Seviper and Ash's Torterra. Like always, Team Rocket loses and blasts off, leaving the gang to continue their journey back to Sunyshore City so Ash can have his long-awaited battle against Volkner. However, Jessie and James, now sore, realize that they're missing a team member: Meowth! Meowth is soon discovered by a girl and her Glameow. Nursed to health, he awakens to find he is in love with the Glameow that has rescued him from further injury.
While joining the twosome for lunch, Meowth is found by Jessie and James, and much to his discontent, he's taken back to the balloon. Lovesick, Meowth devises a plan to catch Glameow. Despite Jessie and James's arguments, Meowth fantasizes about Giovanni having the Glameow, so Meowth can secretly have Glameow to himself.
Meanwhile, Ash and his friends cross paths with Glameow's Trainer, whose name is revealed as Mamie. Having just started her journey, she tried to defeat Crasher Wake but lost.
Their conversation is ended when they fall through a bridge into a cage deliberately set by none other than Team Rocket. As Team Rocket goes through their motto, Glameow is snatched, but is quickly returned to her Poké Ball. As Carnivine and Buizel go into battle, Glameow's Poké Ball is grabbed right from Mamie's fingers! Team Rocket floats away in their balloon while Ash and his friends get drenched with a drop to the river below. Soon afterwards, Ash and his friends promise Mamie that they will help rescue her Glameow.
Team Rocket rests and agrees to soon send it to Giovanni, but Meowth declines and tries all to get Glameow's Poké Ball away from Jessie's hands, ending in failure.
At sunset, Staraptor and Togekiss return to their Trainers empty handed: no Glameow or Team Rocket in sight.
Later, Meowth awakens to find Jessie and James asleep; he takes Glameow's Poké Ball and sneaks away. When Glameow is called out of the Poké Ball, she is confused about her Trainer not being around. Meowth sneakily explains that Team Rocket forced Meowth to kidnap her. He tells Glameow that she wouldn't like hanging out with Team Rocket: they always get pummeled by Ash! Meowth informs Glameow that he is taking her away to a safe place. He says he's like her "PokéKnight in shining armor." However, Glameow imagines Meowth coming to her on a Rapidash, his bottom burning from the flames.
The twosome walk up to a river where a boat lays. Meowth and Glameow get in the boat, and they gaze at the full moon as the boat takes them steadily down the river.
In the morning, Staraptor and Togekiss are sent out yet again to try to locate Team Rocket. Meanwhile, Jessie and James awake to find Glameow and Meowth gone. The remaining Team Rocket opens a letter left by Meowth and says as follows:
Don't look for me. I'm out of here. The long held dream the three of us shared of conquering all of Sinnoh is completely over for me. And my short and long term goal now is to live a long and happy life filled to the brim with gobs of domestic bliss, along with my beloved babe Glameow, dig? And so I hereby tender my resignation as a long steady member of Team Rocket and hope you guys have a nice day.
Suddenly, they realize that Meowth had planned this from the start. Aggravated, Jessie and James climb into their balloon, only to be discovered by Staraptor and Togekiss. Ash and Dawn commands Staraptor and Togekiss to use Brave Bird and Aura Sphere on the balloon. Unfortunately, the gang discovers that Jessie and James don't have the Glameow. She's still with Meowth.
Speaking of, Meowth and Glameow are in the boat enjoying an afternoon snack. Only to be interrupted by Yanmega, Staraptor, and Togekiss. Trying to escape, Meowth is stopped by Piplup's Whirlpool.
Meowth, a fury sent through his body, uses a series of what he calls "Fury Swipes of love" on Seviper, Infernape, Yanmega, Staraptor, and Togekiss! They all go down.
Carnivine is sent out, and both Glameow and Meowth are pummeled by Bullet Seed. Glameow, unscathed, evolves into Purugly.
Meowth lands to see that Glameow is gone, and Purugly now stands where Glameow once was. Understanding the situation, Meowth is devastated. He is then hit by Seviper and Infernape. Purugly returns to Mamie.
Mamie uses her Pokédex to discover that Purugly can now use more moves, so she commands Purugly to unleash a Hyper Beam onto Team Rocket. They blast off.
We return to the gang and Mamie as they come to a fork in the road, Mamie heading back to the Pastoria Gym and Ash and his friends returning to Sunyshore City. They part their ways, and now everyone is filled with new energy.
Major events
- For a list of all major events in the anime, please see the timeline of events.
Pokémon debuts
- Pikachu (Ash's)
- Meowth (Team Rocket)
- Piplup (Dawn's)
- Wobbuffet (Jessie's)
- Staraptor (Ash's)
- Torterra (Ash's)
- Infernape (Ash's)
- Buizel (Ash's)
- Togekiss (Dawn's)
- Seviper (Jessie's)
- Yanmega (Jessie's)
- Carnivine (James's)
- Floatzel (Crasher Wake's; flashback)
- Gyarados (Crasher Wake's; flashback)
- Quagsire (Crasher Wake's; flashback)
- Glameow (Mamie's; evolves)
- Purugly (Mamie's; newly evolved)
- Rapidash (fantasy)
- Dialga (fantasy)
- Palkia (fantasy)
- Professor Oak's Big Pokémon Examination: Honchkrow
- The music played during the title card is removed in this episode. Instead, the Badges and Ribbons are heard flying by the screen before a fanfare is played.
- The outfit Meowth is wearing in the fantasy of being Glameow's "Poké-knight in shining armor" is the same outfit he wore during Wake Up Snorlax!, when trying to wake up a Snorlax from its deep sleep.
- This episode's title comes from the phrase "For the love of God".
- In the Japanese version, the title card is read by Jessie, James, and Meowth. In the dub, Ash reads the title as usual.
- When Carnivine is firing Bullet Seed at Buizel, its Japanese voice can be heard.
Dub edits
In other languages
|Mandarin Chinese
|In naam van Meowth
|Voi hyvä Meowth sentään!
|Mauzi im Liebesrausch
|Selamat Tinggal Team Rocket! Nyasu Jatuh Cinta!?
|Per l'amore di Meowth!
|로켓단이여, 안녕 나옹의 슬픈 사랑
|Av kjærlighet til Meowth!
|Zakochany Meowth!
|Pelo Amor de Meowth!
|Um Amor de Meowth!
|Latin America
|¡Por el Amor de Meowth!
|¡Por el amor de Meowth!
|Allvarligt talat, Meowth!
|This episode article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of the Pokémon anime.


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- About Pullman
- SEWEDA - Palouse Business...Palouse Life
- Awards and Recognitions
- Pullman Video Tour
- Pullman Transit
- Pullman History
- Downtown parking map
- The Lay of the Land
- Sister City History
- Housing Resources
- Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport
- Neill Public Library
- City Statistics
- Welcome to Pullman
- Greening of Pullman
Pullman Smart Grid Demonstration Project
Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 September 2013 12:44
The Pullman community was selected in 2010 by the Pacific Northwest Grid Demonstration Project to demonstrate smart grid technologies using matching stimulus monies from the U.S. Department of Energy. Avista is leading the five-year Pullman Smart Grid Demonstration Project, and will contribute $14.9 million with its local partners contributing an additional $4 million to create a smart grid in Pullman.
"We envision the smart grid to be a more efficient and effective electricity infrastructure that can help contain costs, reduce emissions, incorporate renewable energy, increase power grid reliability and provide greater flexibility for consumers," Heather Cummins, Avista's director of process improvement, who leads Avista's smart grid programs.