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Lois and Willard Mackey Chair in Creative Writing
Established in the late 1980s by Willard Mackey'47 in honor of his wife, Lois'45, this program brings an author of distinction to the Beloit College campus for all or part of one semester to teach an advanced course in creative writing. "Mackeys," as these professors are called, also give public readings, which are among the most anticipated and best attended events on campus.
Learn more about the Lois and Willard Mackey Chair in Creative Writing and the most recent resident.
Anne Elizabeth Moore2019
Anne Elizabeth Moore is the author of Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes (Best Book, Chicago Public Library); Unmarketable (Best Book, Mother Jones), Cambodian Grrrl (Best Book, Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award), and the comics collection Threadbare (Best Investigative Journalism, Tits & Sass), among other titles. She lives in Chicago, where she is the editor-in-chief of the Chicago Reader.
Rebecca Makkai2017-2018
Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the short story collection Music for Wartime, which appeared in 2015, and of the novels The Hundred-Year House, winner of the Chicago Writers Association award, and The Borrower, a Booklist Top Ten Debut which has been translated into eight languages.
Robert Wrigley2016-2017
Robert Wrigley will publish his twelfth book of poems, Box, in March, 2017. He is the recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Award, The Poets' Prize, the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Book Award, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. His poems have appeared three times in Best American Poetry; once in Best of the Best American Poetry; seven times in the Pushcart Prize Anthology; as well as in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, and the Times Literary Supplement, among many other magazines and journals. He is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Idaho and lives in the woods with his wife, the writer Kim Barnes.
George Dawes Green2015-2016
George Dawes Green created the global storytelling organization The Moth in 1997. He is the author of three highly acclaimed novels: The Caveman's Valentine, which won an Edgar award for Best First Mystery, and was made into a motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson; The Juror, which was the basis for a film starring Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore; and Ravens, which was featured on many Best Novel of the Year lists for 2009, including Publisher's Weekly, London's Daily Mirror, and Entertainment Weekly.
Susan Choi2014-2015
Susan Choi was born in South Bend, Ind., and raised there and in Houston, Texas. She studied literature at Yale University and writing at Cornell University, and worked for several years as a fact-checker for The New Yorker.
Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, and her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. With David Remnick she co-edited the anthology Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award.
A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband, Pete Wells, and their sons.
Scott Russell Sanders2013-2014
Scott Russell Sanders is the author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including A Private History of Awe and A Conservationist Manifesto. The best of his essays from the past 30 years, plus nine new essays, are collected in Earth Works, published in 2012 by Indiana University Press. Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2012, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University, where he taught from 1971 to 2009.
Kevin Young2012-2013
Kevin Young is the author of seven books of poetry, including Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (2011) and Jelly Roll (2003), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. He is the editor of seven other collections, most recently The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing (2010) and Best American Poetry 2011. Young is the Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English and Curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University in Atlanta.
Giles Foden2011-2012
British author Giles Foden is best known for his award-winning novel, The Last King of Scotland, which was adapted into the 2007 Oscar-nomiated film of the same name. Depicting the fictional relationship between Ugandan President Idi Amin and a young Scottish physician who is witness to Amin's atrocities, The Last King of Scotland (1998) won a Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize. Foden is also the author of Ladysmith, Zanzibar, Turbulence, and Mimi and Toutou Go Forth. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia in England.
James McManus2010-2011
James McManus is a novelist, poet, and a winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for sports journalism. He teaches writing and comparative literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, including a course on the literature and science of poker.
Linda Gregerson2009-2010
Poet Linda Gregerson is a 2007 National Book Award finalist, a recent Guggenheim Fellow, and directs the master of fine arts program in creative writing at the University of Michigan. She is the author of several books of poetry and literary criticism, and her poems have appeared in publications including The Best American Poetry, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, and TriQuarterly. Among her many awards and honors are an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, three Pushcart Prizes, and a Kingsley Tufts Award.
Scott Russell Sanders2008-2009
Scott Russell Sanders is the author of more than 20 books, a range of novels, collections of stories, and works of personal nonfiction, including Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World (1994), Writing from the Center (1995), Hunting for Hope: A Father's Journeys (1999), the Pulitzer Prize-nominated A Private History of Awe (2006), and A Conservationist Manifesto (2009). He was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Richard Bausch2007-2008
Fiction writer Richard Bausch is the author of over 17 novels and short story collections, including Real Presence (1980) Someone to Watch Over Me (1999), Hello to the Cannibals (2002), Wives and Lovers (2004), and Thanksgiving Night (2006). In 2004, he won the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story.
Robert Stone2006-2007
Robert Stone has been called one of the best of the post-Vietnam fiction writers. His dark humor has been compared to Vonnegut and his psychological complexity to Conrad. He won the National Book Award for Dog Soldiers (1974) and the PEN Faulkner prize for A Flag for Sunrise (1981). Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties (2007) is an autobiographical account of his association with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.
William Least Heat-Moon2005-2006
William Least Heat-Moon is a travel writer whose Blue Highways (1982) spent 42 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. His following works, PrairyErth (1999) and River Horse (2002), created a trilogy that established him as one of America's preeminent travelogists. His "deep map" approach is an intensively topographical method of writing a sense of place which interlaces the travel documentary with autobiography, archeology, folklore, memory, natural history, reportage, and interviews.
Billy Collins2003-2004
Billy Collins was appointed as the 2001-2003 Library of Congress Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Collins has published seven books of poetry including The Art of Drowning (1995), which was a Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize finalist, and Questions About Angels (1991), a National Poetry Series selection by Edward Hirsch. Collins' poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals including The American Poetry Review, Harper's, and The New Yorker. He also is Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York and a former Literary Lion of the New York Public Library.
Pam Houston2002-2003
Pam Houston is the award-wining author of books including Cowboys Are My Weakness (1993), Waltzing the Cat (1999), A Little More About Me (2000), and Sight Hound (2006) and Contents May Have Shifted (2012). Her stories have been selected for the Best American Short Stories Collections, the O. Henry Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories of the Century. Houston teaches in the graduate writing program at the University of California-Davis.
Patricia Hampl2001-2002
Patricia Hampl is Regents Professor and McKnight Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota where she teaches in the master of fine arts program of the English department. Hampl's books include A Romantic Education (1999), her memoir about her Czech heritage, and Virgin Time (1993), a memoir about her Catholic upbringing and an inquiry into contemplative life. She also has two collections of poetry, Woman before an Aquarium (1978) and Resort and Other Poems (1983).
Bei Dao2000-2001
Bei Dao is a prominent Chinese dissident poet who has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize. He received the International Poetry Argana Award from the House of Poetry in Morocco and the PEN/ Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. His poetry has been translated into over 25 languages.
Ron Carlson1999-2000
Ron Carlson is a novelist and writer of short stories. His Bigfoot stories were anthologized in the prestigious Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, and his novel, Plan B for the Middle Class, was called one of the best books of 1992 by The New York Times. Another novel, The News of the Word, received the same honor in 1987. Carlson is the former director of Arizona State University's creative writing program, and he currently teaches at the University of California-Irvine.
Li-Young Lee1998-1999
Li-Young Lee is a highly acclaimed Asian-American poet and winner of many awards for his riveting autobiographical verse. He has taught at several universities, including Northwestern and the University of Iowa, and he is the author of Behind My Eyes (2008), Book of My Nights (2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award, The City in Which I Love You (1991), which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection, and Rose (1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award.
Amy Hempel1997-1998
Amy Hempel is one of the most prominent of the new American "minimalist" writers. Hempel has produced many collections of short stories including At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990) and Tumble Home (1997). She writes articles, essays, and short stories for such publications as Vanity Fair, Interview, GQ, ELLE, Harper's Magazine, and The Quarterly. She won the Ambassador Book Award in 2007 for The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (2006), which was also named as one of The New York Times' Ten Best Books of the year. She won the Rea Award for the Short Story in 2008, and she received the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction in 2009.
Denise Levertov1996-1997
Denise Levertov (1923-1997) was perhaps the most influential woman poet in the United States since the 1940s. Levertov wrote and published 20 books of poetry, such as her Breathing the Water (1987) and A Door in the Hive (1989), and she also published criticism and translations. Among her many awards and honors, she received the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Lannan Award, a Catherine Luck Memorial Grant, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Edward Hoagland1995-1996
Edward Hoagland is an author best known for his nature and travel writing. His nonfiction has been widely praised by writers such as John Updike, who called him "the best essayist of my generation." He's taught at The New School, Rutgers University, Sarah Lawrence College, The City University of New York, the University of Iowa, the University of California-Davis, Columbia University, and Brown University, and he is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships. In 2005, Hoagland retired from a teaching position at Bennington College in Vermont.
Peter Matthiessen1994-1995
Peter Matthiessen is one of the most prolific American writers since World War II, who has excelled in fiction, travel writing, and reportage alike. He is co-founder of The Paris Review, and received a National Book Award for The Snow Leopard (1978). Matthiessen's most recent works include Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia (1992) where he recounts his visit to Siberia and Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake on the planet; Shadows of Africa (1992), which includes his essays on Africa from South Sudan to Zaire; and East of Lo Monthang: In the Land of Mustang (1995).
Carolyn Kizer1993-1994
Carolyn Kizer is the author of eight books of poetry including Cool Calm & Collected (2000), Harping On: Poems 1985-1995 (1996), The Nearness of You: Poems for Men (1986), and Yin (1984), which won a Pulitzer Prize. She is a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and she served as the first director of the Literature Program at the National Endowment for the Arts from 1966-1970.
Rick Bass1992-1993
Rick Bass is the author of 26 books of fiction and nonfiction, including the forthcoming work of nonfiction The Black Rhinos of Namibia (2012). His nature-writing fiction has been called one of "tomorrow's classics" by critic George Plimpton.
Ursula K. LeGuin1991-1992
Ursula K. LeGuin is one of the most celebrated writers of speculative fiction in the United States. The Left Hand of Darkness won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1970, and her subsequent novel, The Dispossessed, made her the first person to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel twice for the same two books. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for Unlocking the Air and Other Stories.
William Stafford1990-1991
William Stafford (1914-1993) was one of the best-loved poets in the United States, and he is the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. His poem, Traveling through the Dark, received a 1962 National Book Award, and is anthologized internationally. He was appointed the twentieth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970. Stafford was a close friend and collaborator with poet Robert Bly. He was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies and eventually published fifty-seven volumes of poetry. James Dickey called Stafford one of those poets "who pour out rivers of ink, all on good poems." He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published.
Tess Gallagher1989-1990
Tess Gallagher is a noted writer of both poetry and short fiction, and one of the few writers equally acclaimed in both genres. She is also the literary executor of Raymond Carver, her late husband. Her honors include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, two National Endowment for the Arts awards, the Maxine Cushing Gray Foundation Award, and the Elliston Award for "best book of poetry published by a small press" for her 1976 collection Instructions to the Double.
Raymond Carver1988
Raymond Carver (1938-1988) was one of the most influential American writers of short fiction since 1975. Carver brought a new realism to the American short story. Some of his stories, such as "Cathedral" (nominated for a 1984 Pulitzer Prize) and "A Small, Good Thing" are now established classics.


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When Adams county fruit grower Jim Lerew first spotted the weird ring patterns on his peaches in 1998, he didn't know what to think.
"This was fruit that had been culled at the packing house," remembers John Halbrendt. "Nobody would buy it."
Lerew took some samples to Penn State's Fruit Research and Extension Center in nearby Biglerville, where Halbrendt works as a plant pathologist. "We didn't know what it was," Halbrendt says. "There are so many things it could have been. Some diseases mimic other diseases, or nutritional problems, or mineral deficiencies. . . You can get a frost at the wrong time and it creates symptoms that happen once and you never see them again. So the first time he brought it in, nobody got excited.
"But then it showed up a second year. Not in a lot of trees, so even [Lerew] wasn't too alarmed, but he wanted to find out what was wrong, so he could correct it."
Finally, toward the end of the growing season, Lerew took some of the suspect peaches to a fruit-growers meeting at Rutgers University, and showed them to Jerry Frecon, an extension specialist who had studied for a time in France. "[Frecon] said, 'If I didn't know better, I'd say that was plum pox.' It was a casual remark like that," Halbrendt remembers.
That was September 9, 1999. On September 23, Ruth Welliver, plant virologist for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, visited the Lerew Brothers orchard in Gardners, near Gettysburg. She took leaf samples back to her lab in Harrisburg and tested them against antibodies that react to the large family of pathogens known as potyviruses. A week later she had a positive result. "There is only one potyvirus that affects stone fruits," Welliver said soon after. "So this was not a good sign."
Welliver sent a picture of the problem peaches to colleague Laurene Levy at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. When Levy saw those ring patterns, she told a Science News reporter later, "I just about died." Subsequent tests by USDA scientists confirmed the presence of plum pox virus.
"Very quickly we had a group of volunteers organized to go out to the neighboring orchards and take samples for testing," Halbrendt says. It was the end of the growing season, and Welliver needed leaf tissue to run her tests.
By first frost, she had her results. A total of 18 orchard blocks, all within the same three-mile area, had turned up plum-pox infected trees. Disturbingly, only two of these blocks had trees that showed any symptoms.
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quickly imposed a quarantine on the two rural townships affected to prevent movement of infected plant material and spread of the virus: No Prunus seedlings, buds or other living tissues could be shipped out of the area. In December, an emergency meeting at the Penn State extension center in Biglerville drew researchers and growers from across the U.S. and Europe. Sam Hayes, Pennsylvania's Secretary of Agriculture, pledged an aggressive response.
"It was only a couple of miles from here that one of the great battles of the Civil War was waged," Hayes said. "We're about to wage another one."
Plum pox doesn't hurt humans. But it is one of the most devastating diseases that can hit the plant species Prunus, which include peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, almonds, and cherries. First reported in 1915, in Bulgaria, the plum pox virus gradually spread throughout Europe, where it has become the scourge of the stone-fruit industry. Estimates are that over 100 million European trees are infected with the disease, which causes severe cosmetic damage to fruit, making it unsalable, drastically reduces yields, and may eventually kill the tree. More recently, plum pox has spread along the Mediterranean basin and as far as Egypt and Syria. In 1992, it was discovered in Chile. Before the outbreak five years ago in Adams County, however, it had never been seen in North America.
The immediate fear, then, was that the virus would spread: not just through Adams County, where peaches are an important pillar of a local economy that depends heavily on fruit trees, but also to threaten Pennsylvania's sizeable stone-fruit industry, the country's fourth largest, with an annual value of $25 million. Beyond that, there was real concern that plum pox, if not checked, would make its way clear across the U.S., crippling an industry worth some $1.8 billion.
The immediate reaction, therefore, was to search and destroy. "We must circle this virus and do everything humanly and scientifically possible to confront it," Secretary Hayes said. Soon after the ground thawed in the spring of 2000, several hundred acres of infected peach trees were bulldozed, with a three-year moratorium placed on replanting. A massive survey effort was commenced to check for plum pox in all commercial orchards and nurseries across the state.
Even before that, however, Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and Cooperative Extension service had swung into action. Plant pathologists Jim Travis and Herb Cole organized a series of educational meetings—for growers, but also for researchers and extension agents who had never worked with the disease. Penn State experts appeared on radio and television programs around the state. Agriculture communications teams, working closely with Travis, developed pamphlets, a video, and a Web site that became a clearinghouse for plum pox information.
"There was a lot of concern among the growers, " Halbrendt remembers. "I don't think anyone's panicking," Jim Lerew told an interviewer. "Fruit growers deal with problems all the time—freezes, hailstorms, droughts, too much rain at the wrong time—this is just another problem to deal with." Still, Jim Lott, another Adams County grower, acknowledged, "the more I learn about it, the scarier it gets." Un-checked, Lerew admitted, plum pox would put Pennsylvania out of the peach business.Experts warned of a possible domino effect. In Adams county, peaches fit neatly into a balanced system with apples, the crop the region is better known for. "The breakdown is probably 75 percent apples, 25 percent peaches," Penn State plant pathologist Fred Gildow estimates. But peaches bring much more than apples do at market. And crop diversity is crucial to efficient harvesting. "We depend a lot on migrant workers down here," Halbrendt explains. "You want to spread out your harvest season so you can get everything picked. Peaches come in early, so you can get your pickers to come in during the peach season, and then stay on through the apple season. You can give them a full season's work. Otherwise, they're not going to want to come."
By the time European plant scientists knew what they were dealing with decades ago, plum pox virus (known there by its Slavic name, "sharka") was too entrenched to eradicate. Because the Pennsylvania outbreak appeared to be an isolated incident, experts hoped they had caught it early enough to get rid of the disease entirely.
infected peach trees
Several hundred acres of infected peach trees had to be bulldozed.
They were cautiously optimistic. "If there is a chance, now is the time," Halbrendt said at that first emergency meeting. "We're going to have to be ruthless."
"The key is the growers," Ruth Welliver said. "We have to have grower commitment to cleaning it up, to looking at their orchards and communicating what they see."
By all accounts, that commitment was strong from the beginning. But it was certainly helped when the Pennsylvania legislature authorized an indemnification program aimed at providing growers with fair compensation for the losses they would incur if their lands turned out to be infected. The work of Penn State economist Jayson Harper and others to detail plum pox's potential impact on the state, along with strong support from the Department of Agriculture, helped to get the bill passed, and also to spur the federal government to institute a similar program. Currently, the federal government bears 85 percent of the indemnification cost, and Pennsylvania the remaining 15 percent.
As important to the goal of eradication was a massive and well-coordinated survey effort. In the spring of 2000, survey crews set out to sample and test every peach orchard in the state of Pennsylvania. Orchards in Adams and surrounding counties were tested twice. In areas with infected orchards, volunteers conducted door-to-door surveys to locate backyard fruit trees for testing.
Collectors walked each orchard, "taking leaves from every fourth tree," Gildow says. Because the leaves often show no outward signs of the virus, they had to be tested serologically. Back at her Department of Agriculture lab, Welliver and her staff would pulverize the leaves and then subject them to Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, or ELISA, a standard method of testing for plant diseases. An ELISA set up for plum pox contains antibodies specific to the virus: It reacts in the presence of proteins present in infected leaves. Samples testing positive were then sent on to the USDA's lab at Beltsville, Maryland, where they were double-checked via polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which shows up the presence of viral RNA.
"Wherever a positive was confirmed, the PDA survey crews would go back and do follow-up testing," Gildow says. Once infected orchards were identified, they had to be immediately removed and burned—as did all surrounding trees to a distance of 500 meters. That distance, Gildow explains, is safely beyond the normal flight range of the aphids that carry plum pox from tree to tree.
That first year, over 65,000 samples were tested, and 399 turned up as positives for plum pox virus. Nine-hundred acres had to be destroyed.
At the same time, a national survey was being conducted by the USDA, testing orchards in all 35 peach-producing states. That task was made all the more urgent in June of 2000, when Canadian agriculture officials reported the existence of plum pox in Niagara Falls, Ontario
By the spring of 2002, authorities seemed to be getting a handle on the disease. The number of samples tested the previous summer had jumped to 140,000, and the number of positives fell dramatically, to 27. More importantly, the wider state and national surveys had turned up not a single positive result: No plum pox outside the original "hot zone" in Adams County. "That was a really good feeling," Welliver says, "to think that we had caught it in time."
But important questions remained. How did plum pox get to Pennsylvania? Where did it come from? How does it spread?
As an expert on plant virus transmission, Gildow already had some of the answers. "In nature," he explains, "potyviruses (the family of plant viruses to which plum pox belongs) are transmitted by aphids," tiny winged insects that feed in and colonize orchards and crop fields.
Aphids are sap-suckers: For their food, they fly from leaf to leaf, tapping into vascular tissue with a beak-like stylet, much the way a mosquito taps the blood of your arm. "The thing is, aphids aren't very smart," Gildow says. "They don't use their eyes or sense of smell to detect potential food hosts. To determine whether a leaf is one they'll like, they land and taste. That's when the virus gets spread, when they're hopping from tree to tree doing these test probes."
The virus can occur in high concentrations in leaf cells, he explains. When an aphid samples an infected cell, virus is drawn into the stylet. Although the aphid itself will not be infected, the virus can remain potent in its stylet for a couple of hours. If, in that time, the aphid lands on a healthy plant and takes a taste, some of that live virus is transferred and the virus can be spread.
It's a pretty inefficient means of transmission: A French study of apricot orchards showed that only one in a thousand aphids is likely to pass plum pox along. Still, according to another study, up to 300,000 aphids may land on a tree in a given season. Sheer numbers, then, helped the aphid carry plum pox across the European continent, to the former Yugoslavia in 1935, Hungary in 1941, Germany in 1956, Poland and Russia in 1961, and France in 1970. "Spain was saved for a while by the Pyrenees," Gildow says. "Aphids couldn't cross over them." But plum pox finally crashed into Spain in 1984 by a far more insidious means: It was carried by human hands.
Trade in seedlings used as root stocks and in budwood is a staple of plant breeding, as new varieties are tried and old ones combined in the quest for the perfect tree. "Typically you would graft buds from good fruit varieties onto root stocks with other desirable characteristics," Gildow says. "Producing budwood is an industry in itself."
Most countries now place strict limits on this movement. Thus, Gildow says, "Any plant material entering the U.S. has to go through one of the USDA's two quarantine nurseries, either Beltsville, Maryland, or Prosser, Washington. You have to send the material to one of these nurseries, and they grow it, study it, test it for disease, and after two or three years, if it's clean—pathogen-free—they release it for nursery production and eventual sale."
USDA's regulatory arm, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, tries to make sure nothing slips through this system. ("They're the people at the airport with the beagles," Gildow says.) But it's impossible to keep everything out. "You could take a couple of buds, put them in a damp paper towel and stick it in your pocket and bring them home and graft them." Since the infection is often present without symptoms, it would've been easy for an overzealous hobbyist to bring it in inadvertently. Alternatively, because the virus can remain latent and is extremely difficult to detect in some hosts, it may have entered the U.S. accidentally in infected Prunus ornamental or fruit seedlings and slipped through the system.
Infected buds or seedlings accidentally imported into the country are almost certainly how plum pox invaded North America, Gildow says. "Because it takes several years to see symptoms following infection, we think the introduction probably occurred eight or ten years ago."
A tight quarantine and an aggressive awareness campaign might stop infected budwood and root stock from leaving Adams County. But quarantines have little impact on the meanderings of aphids. To control the movement of plum pox at the local level would require learning exactly which aphids are responsible for its spread. As Gildow explains, there are reported to be about 10 aphid species that make their homes in North American orchards, with another dozen species routinely passing through on their way to or from other types of vegetation.
Because plum pox virus is one of 11 select plant pathogens identified under the U.S. Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act (see sidebar), it cannot legally be studied outside a secure biological containment facility. Penn State has no suitable facility, so Gildow does his work at the USDA's Foreign Diseases Containment Greenhouse at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There, over the last four years, he has been working in collaboration with USDA scientists Vern Damsteegt and Bill Schneider on studies of plum pox virus transmission.
"Of about 13 aphid species we tested from Pennsylvania orchards, Gildow reports, "we found four to be good vectors—that is, they transmitted the virus efficiently." The most efficient species was Myzus persicae, also known as the green peach aphid. But the most numerous in Pennsylvania orchards, by far, and therefore probably the main culprit, is the spirea aphid, Aphis spiraecola. "Both of these species are migrants, just passing through peach orchards during the growing season," Gildow says. "They blow in off other crops, or live on native plants or weeds in and around orchards. They're not going to colonize peach trees, but they will do test probes and feed on peach." The fact that both species are migrants and do not settle down and reproduce on peach means that pesticide sprays will not control them, Gildow adds. That makes quick eradication of infected trees even more important.
Gildow, Damsteegt, and Schneider have also found that the insects can pass virus from infected fruit to healthy trees—at least in the lab. This finding may prove especially important, since the current terms of quarantine do not forbid shipping infected fruit. "There's no proof that aphids in nature have picked up the virus from fruit and transmitted it to a tree," Gildow acknowledges. "But in a few cases we've found the virus in isolated trees, far from any other infection sites. And what these cases had in common was nearby cull piles—places where people have thrown reject fruit after packing or home use. What it suggests is another possible mode of transmission that needs to be looked at."
Another question that hung in the air was the possibility that plants other than Prunus might play a hidden role in plum pox's spread. Could aphids carry the virus to infect other nearby weeds or trees that might act as reservoirs—safe havens where the virus could survive and adapt to strike another day? If so, the task of eradication would become immensely more complicated.
"In the lab," Gildow says, "plum pox has a very large host range." Indeed, French plant virologists have identified 134 species of plants in 16 different families that can accommodate the virus. "But in the lab these plants are mechanically inoculated," he quickly adds. "You rub an abrasive on the leaf and then introduce the virus and see if it takes. Is that relevant in nature?" Damsteegt and Schneider, in collaboration with Gildow, are studying the plant host range of the virus in ornamental and wild Prunus species. When inoculated with aphids under greenhouse conditions, they have found the Pennsylvania isolates of plum pox virus capable of infecting most Prunus species tested, with the exception of sour cherry. "Many people may not be aware of the fact", says Gildow, "that many ornamental shrubs used for landscaping are Prunus species and that the number one hardwood tree in Pennsylvania is black cherry, another potential reservoir host of plum pox."
For the past four summers, John Halbrendt and a crew of helpers have been scouring the Adams County countryside in an effort to find out whether plum pox may have escaped the orchard and infected native plants or weeds which could hide the virus from the eradication effort.
"We go to areas adjacent to where heavily infected orchards had been," Halbrendt explains, "where there's been an opportunity for aphids to move back and forth between weeds [i.e., wild plants] and infected peach trees. We gather samples, identify them, and take them back to the lab and put them through ELISA." Last summer his team ran some 10,000 samples, representing 66 native species. "In one sense we're shooting in the dark," Halbrendt acknowledges. "But in another sense we can't ignore the possibility that it could be out there. You don't find what you're not looking for." So far, he reports, the news has been all good. Of a total of 37,000 samples tested over four seasons, they have found no infected weeds.
Halbrendt is also taking another approach: setting out "bait" plants and conducting surveillance on them. "These are herbaceous plants that have been identified as possible alternate hosts for the virus—I'm using pea, zinnia, African daisy, and red clover," he explains. "I germinate them in the greenhouse and take them out to sites in the quarantine area—again, these are sites adjacent to infected areas." After two weeks in the field—enough time for aphids to move in and feed—he brings the bait back to the lab, and tests it for plum pox. Again, after testing 9,000 plants, Halbrendt has seen no presence of the virus. (USDA personnel conducting a second surveillance program using peach trees as trap plants have had the same negative results.)
Is he willing, yet, to say that plum pox is not out there in the wild? "Well, you can't prove a negative," Halbrendt says. "The best we can do is keep piling up the data—the more we have the more confidence we can have in it. The number of samples we've run is still relatively small."
Even granting such a caveat, the concerted effort to deny plum pox's conquest of Pennsylvania—and of North America—appears to be working. There have been significant losses, to be sure. Some 1,400 acres, about a sixth of the stone-fruit acreage in the state, have had to be torn up. A number of Adams county orchards and nurseries have been hit pretty hard. Nationwide, an estimated $40 million has been spent so far in the eradication campaign. But the timely response appears to have stopped plum pox in its tracks. In 2003, Ruth Welliver reports, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture processed 200,000 stone-fruit samples, and turned up only 11 positives for plum pox, all within or near the original quarantine area. Even more importantly, the virus has not been spotted anywhere else in the U.S. The Ontario outbreak, while far more widespread at its outset, appears also to be under control.
This success, Gildow says, can be traced to a high degree of teamwork among the various agencies that came together to battle plum pox from the beginning. "There was no competition," he says. "This was an example of interagency cooperation that worked well."
Of particular importance, most agree, was the early intervention of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, and a Secretary who had been sensitized by another recent emergency: the 1997 outbreak of Avian flu. "To have Sam Hayes on board, and realizing how important this was early on was critical," Halbrendt says. The current Secretary, Dennis C. Wolff, has also strongly backed the eradication program.
The fast and well-coordinated action of Penn State agricultural scientists and extension specialists was also critical. And Adams County growers, Halbrendt adds, "have been wonderful. They realized that to eradicate [the virus] would hurt now, but in the long run it would be better for everyone—and that if we didn't eradicate it, there would be a big black cloud over the state's stone-fruit industry from now on."
In 2002, the multi-agency team assembled to fight plum pox was officially recognized by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman for effectively limiting the spread of plum pox "by building an inclusive team of university, state, federal, and agricultural industry personnel."
The kudos don't mean the fight is over, however. "It could be out there and we just haven't found it yet," Halbrendt says. The national survey, after three years with no trace of the disease, has narrowed to seven states: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Virginia, Michigan, and California, says USDA's Don Albright, director of the national program. Likewise, Welliver says, state survey teams are "tightening the noose," sampling more intensely in a more and more concentrated area. In addition to orchards and nurseries, Albright's USDA teams set out last year to survey all 45,000 homeowner properties within the three-county quarantine area. One of those tests turned up a positive in a dwarf flowering almond tree—the first case of plum pox seen in an American ornamental.
Gildow has written: "As the eradication program continues and fewer infected trees remain, it will become even more important to identify every single infected tree. Elimination of 99 percent of the infected trees is not an option. Unless every infected tree is eliminated . . . plum pox virus epidemics can reoccur within a few years."
As an added precaution, in the wake of his fruit-transmission results, Gildow travels periodically to the port of Philadelphia to work with USDA-APHIS inspectors checking stone fruits arriving there from Chile, and testing them for possible PPV infection. "These fruits are arriving in winter," he says, "so I don't think it's very likely that they would play a major role in PPV spread. But there is always the remote possibility that some fruit could survive long enough to be discarded in cull piles, and the state has asked us to check on this."
The long-term solution, Halbrendt and Gildow agree, is to develop stone fruits that are virus-resistant, whether by traditional plant breeding, or by genetic engineering. USDA researchers have already developed a plum-pox resistant plum.
For now, however, plum pox—by all estimates—is at least contained. "That word seems a little weak, but I guess it's fair," Welliver says. "Contained, and hopefully on its way out."
"We have knocked it way back," Gildow concurs. "Now we need to be vigilant for the next five years. If we can do that, we will have saved the industry."
Frederick E. Gildow, Ph.D. is professor of plant pathology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, 211 Buckhout Laboratory, University Park Pa, 16802; 814-863-3206; firstname.lastname@example.com. John M. Halbrendt, Ph.D., is associate professor of plant pathology at the Penn State Fruit Research & Extension Center, 290 University Drive, Biglerville, PA, 17307-0330; 717-677-6116; firstname.lastname@example.com. Ruth M. Welliver, Ph.D., is plant virologist for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, 2301 N. Cameron Street, Harrisburg, PA 17110-9408; 717-772-5222; firstname.lastname@example.com. Don I. Albright, Ph.D., is National Plum Pox Virus Operations Director for the United States Department of Agriculture, 401 East Louther Street, Suite 102, Carlisle, PA 17103; 717-241-0705; email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) When last seen by most of the country, Kevin Kolb was probably on his backside after absorbing one of a multitude of hits in the Arizona offense's worst performance of the season.
Kolb pronounced himself fine Wednesday, fully recovered from the punishment he endured in that 17-3 Thursday night loss at St. Louis, Arizona's first defeat of the season. The Cardinals scored the fewest points in a game since they lost 13-3 to the New York Jets in 2004, Dennis Green's first season coaching the Arizona
It helps that Kolb had a couple of extra days to shake off the effects of that physical drubbing the Rams put on the Arizona offense.
``It is nice. It was nice for everybody, not just myself,'' Kolb said after practice. ``We've got a lot of little of dings, as does every team in the NFL, but as hard it was to play in that turnaround Thursday night, it is nice to have a few days off to relax and get your body back right.''
An already sputtering offense took a hit when running back Ryan Williams injured his left shoulder, putting him out for the rest of the season. The team already is without running back Beanie Wells for at least five games with a turf toe.
Their absence from already was an anemic ground game and the presence of a porous offensive line leave Kolb in a precarious spot.
Then there is the improving health of John Skelton, who beat out Kolb for the starting job this year. Skelton went down with a sprained right ankle late in the game and Kolb came on to direct the winning drive in the season opener over Seattle.
Skelton said he's about 90 percent healthy and could play if circumstances warranted it this weekend.
Kolb threw 50 passes against the Rams, and was slammed down on most, if not all, of them. Fifty passes are too many, coach Ken Whisenhunt said.
``That's going to give you issues. I don't want to do that,'' Whisenhunt said. ``I'd like to sit here and say if we have to do it, we'll do it, but I don't want to do it.''
Kolb, a football gunslinger by nature, says he will throw 50 again, if necessary.
``You don't want to, especially in this league'' Kolb said, ``but you do what you have to do. We've seen teams win a lot of ways in this league, so we'll do whatever it takes.'
The Cardinals' offense could get some reinforcement this week. Running back LaRod Stephens-Howling, out for two weeks with a hip injury, ``participated fully'' in practice, Whisenhunt said, although he was listed as limited in the injury report.
Tight ends Todd Heap and Jim Drey also were limited. Their return would double the number of tight ends available to help with the blocking, especially on the edge where tackles D'Anthony Batiste and Bobby Massie have struggled so much.
Keeping tight ends in to help protect Arizona's quarterback is an option, although like anything else, a team can't rely on it too much. The same, Kolb said, goes for a three-step drop.
The sack issues, Kolb said, are the responsibility of the entire team.
``Obviously, the line, they get blamed for it,'' he said. ``It's on me. It's on communication from the very beginning, which has been good most of the time, from backs, the tight ends. It's a team effort, and unfortunately the offensive line, they take the brunt of that whenever we have games like that.''
Whisenhunt said improvement on the line can come with scheming the opposition and get better play from the linemen.
``A little bit of both,'' he said. ``I think that there is only so much you can do when you're down and you're trying to catch up. You have to spread it out and throw it, and that's where we've given up some of those sacks.
``There's no question we've got to do a better job in our protection schemes and we've got to do a better job in our techniques. That's what we've been working on and we worked on it some today.''
Despite all those issues, the Cardinals are, after all, 4-1 and tied with San Francisco for first in the greatly improved NFC West. They haven't been 5-1 in 36 years.
Kolb knows that the offense has to get it going against a Buffalo team that has been outscored 90-17 in the last six quarters.
The Cardinals didn't add a running back after Williams went down, choosing to get by with what they have - the trio of Stephens-Howling, William Powell and Alfonso Smith.
The versatile but small Stephens-Howling stepped out of his situational duties to become the No. 1 back when Wells was sidelined in last season's finale against Seattle. He gained 93 yards in 23 carries, both career highs, in Arizona's 23-20 overtime victory.
Online:http://pro32.ap.org/poll andhttp://twitter.com/AP-NFL
Follow Bob Baum at www.twitter.com/Thebaumerphx


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The Body Energizer Vibrating Exercise Machine claims to improve your muscle strength and bone density, using some magic high-frequency vibration. Doesn't this remind you of those worthless butt-shaking machines that were so popular back in the '60s? This one's makers also boast about how it could actually speed weight loss. They even drop the possibility of a few Olympic athletes using it. Take the jump to read the entertaining and incredible exultation to get you to buy this thing. And hey, it's on sale!
Simply hold on to the grippy bars, and stand or squat on the nonslip platform (or try one of the many alternate positions illustrated). In just two to four minutes, three to five times a week, you'll notice a remarkable difference within a month. Similar machines cost as much as $2,500 - but why pay more?
Hmm. Also works as a massage machine? Different positions? Sounds like someth8ing entirely different. The good news? It regularly cost $400 and now it's just $229.95. Caveat emptor. [Hollywood Gadgets, via Sci Fi Tech]


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By Ahmad Majidyar, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Ahmad Majidyar is a senior research associate at the American Enterprise Institute. The views expressed are his own.
A gunman in an Afghan army uniform killed three Australian soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday night, the latest in an alarming string of so-called "green-on-blue" attacks that have eroded morale and trust at a critical juncture as foreign troops are withdrawing and transitioning security to the Afghan lead. The deaths bring the number of foreign troops killed by Afghan allies, or by Taliban fighters disguised as them, to 45 this year, most of them Americans.
According to General John R. Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Taliban has been responsible for one quarter of these attacks through infiltration, coercion and impersonation. The new threat has been a PR disaster for Kabul and Washington, but a propaganda victory for the Taliban. In his Eid al-Fitr message, the insurgent group's reclusive leader Mullah Omar claimed his fighters had "cleverly infiltrated in the ranks of the enemy," and that the Taliban had created the "Call and Guidance, Luring and Integration" department to encourage more defections.
But while the Taliban has played a role, the majority of these attacks have been carried out by disgruntled Afghans with no connection with the insurgents.
One reason is battle fatigue. Afghanistan has already surpassed Vietnam as America's longest war. For Afghans, the country has been embroiled in ceaseless conflict since the 1978 Soviet-backed coup. Drug addiction and mental disorders among Afghan soldiers and policemen are other key factors. A lack of cultural and religious sensitivity, as well as instances of miscommunication and verbal arguments, has also triggered such attacks. It is not a coincidence that insider attacks sharply increased after the Kandahar massacre and Quran burning by American soldiers earlier this year.
Left unchecked, these attacks have serious implications for the transition plan and NATO's Afghanistan exit strategy. Insider attacks are particularly worrying because they call into question the most critical pillar of the Obama administration's Afghanistan strategy, which is to train and build a capable and credible Afghan force that can maintain security and prevent the return of the Taliban and al-Qaeda after foreign troops' departure in two years. Training and mentoring requires close partnership and is impossible without trust. One damaging effect would be a reduction in joint operations.
A continuation of insider killings could also produce political costs, and would further erode public support for the war in the U.S. and Europe. About two-thirds of Americans already do not want troops to be fighting in Afghanistan, and more such attacks would create domestic pressure on allied nations to withdraw troops faster than the 2014 timeline. Indeed, troop casualties were one reason countries such as France and New Zealand charted a faster pullout plan.
So, what can be done? First, the Afghan and U.S. governments need to get on the same page over the issue. The Afghan government, contradicting NATO officials' findings, blames foreign spy agencies, a euphemism for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), for the attacks. Both sides need to agree on what the real causes are and to act in unison to reduce the threat.
To mitigate the Taliban infiltration, both the Afghan and coalition forces need to increase the number of their intelligence and counterintelligence personnel. The Afghan government, meanwhile, needs to implement a more rigorous vetting and recruitment process. More in-depth cultural awareness arrangements for coalition and Afghan forces could also prove useful. NATO officials should also ensure that new security measures are balanced. Too extreme measures could offend the Afghans, widen the gap between the two allies, and increase the level of threat.
The insider attacks are still isolated incidents and do not reflect the overall security situation in Afghanistan – coalition and Afghan forces make hundreds of contacts and conduct joints operations on a daily basis. The Afghan security forces have seen remarkable progress in size and quality over the past two years, and some 350,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen are now responsible for security of more than half the population. But if insider killings continue to rise dramatically, they could potentially derail the overall Afghanistan strategy and undo gains made over a decade of conflict.


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- Apple developing an iWatch
Samsung is developing a wristwatch as it races against Apple to create a new industry of smart wearable devices.
"We've been preparing the watch product for so long," said Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile business. "We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them."
Lee had no comment on what features the watch may have, how much it would cost and when it would go on sale. Asia's biggest technology company already plans to release three high-end smartphones this year – including the Galaxy S4 unveiled last week and one using the Tizen operating system – as it competes with Apple for customers in a slowing global market.
Samsung's disclosure comes after people familiar with Apple's plans said last month the US company has about 100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device that may perform similar functions to the iPhone and iPad. The global watch industry will generate more than $US60 billion in sales this year, said Citigroup analyst Oliver Chen. The first companies to sell devices that multitask could lock customers into their platform, boosting sales of phones, tablets and televisions.
"The race is on to redesign the mobile phone into something that you wear," said Marshal Cohen, an analyst at NPD Group. "We're going to see formidable competition coming from many different directions – from device makers, accessory makers, even fashion designers."
Smartphone saturation
Samsung and Apple are looking for new product lines as the $US358 billion global market for handsets approaches saturation. Growth is projected to slow to 9.8 per cent in 2017 from 27 per cent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Apple's sales growth last quarter was the slowest in more than two years, and Samsung in January warned of slowing demand.
"The issue here is who will first commercialise it so consumers can use it meaningfully," Lee said.
Samsung became the world's largest smartphone maker last year, overtaking Apple. Samsung had 29 per cent of global smartphone unit shipments in the fourth quarter, compared with 21 per cent for Apple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Price advantage
Apple seeks to introduce its wristwatch device as soon as this year, said one of the people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren't public.
The features under consideration by the Cupertino, California-based company include letting users make calls, see the identity of incoming callers and check map coordinates, one of the sources said. It would also house a pedometer for counting steps and sensors for monitoring health-related data, such as heart rates, the source said.
Samsung may be able to undercut Apple on price because the Korean company makes its own displays and chips, said Will Stofega, program director at International Data. Samsung is also the world's largest maker of TVs and memory chips.
Pricing wristwatch-like devices under $US200 will be one of the keys for developers, said Laurence Balter, chief investment strategist at Oracle Investment Research. He estimated one-quarter of existing users of Samsung smartphones and tablets would be interested in using a watch-like device.
"This is a new category that Apple is trailblazing that will see competition from Samsung," he said. "If I were Apple, I'd strategically price the watch as low as possible to bring as many as possible into the ecosystem. Samsung is going to be there for many years to come and try to cut them off."


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For low prices Tickets-Cheapest.com from Financial Firebird Corporation proves it beats its competitors for the exact same seats to provide the prime place to find tickets for premium seats and sold out events including cheap Super Bowl tickets.
New York, NY (PRWEB) January 20, 2014
In order to introduce Tickets-Cheapest.com to new customers, an extra discount code has been offered for the NFL championship to insure they offer the cheapest Super Bowl tickets. Even without an additional savings code, Tickets-Cheapest provides the best prices. By using the code CHEAPESTSUPERBOWL those who buy seats can save $100 or more on each pair of tickets through Wednesday.
Good seats at popular events like concerts, theater and pro sports games sell out fast. Over and over, Tickets-Cheapest.com conducts price comparison studies to be sure it deserves the cheapest tickets name. It should come as no surprise then, that Tickets-Cheapest.com offers the cheapest Super Bowl tickets when comparing online resale sites. When fans want to attend a show where they may no longer buy the tickets they want from the box office, they often turn to websites in the resale market where tickets remain available from others who need to sell their tickets or from brokers or ticket agents. The largest and most commonly know name in the ticket resale market would be Stubhub. So who really offers the best seats and prices? Today's examination revolves around Super Bowl tickets for the absolute cheapest tickets, and instances where the exact same ticket may be bought from each of these two sites.
Start with finding who sells the best cheap Super Bowl tickets in terms of absolute price. This comparison really depends on inventory. Most recent surveys indicate Tickets-Cheapest.com beats StubHub, but each event may vary. In the case of the Super Bowl, these represent the lowest prices:
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Next let's explore a case with the exact same seats.
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Previous ticket cost reviews yielded the same results, in fact, the prices at Tickets-Cheapest.com emerged lower than 25 out of 25 competitors when looking at the exact same tickets. Those interested in other events like concerts, theater, NFL, NHL, NBA or MLB tickets will find Tickets-Cheapest works out as the best deal most of the time.
Tickets-Cheapest.com provides a site where people usually find the best prices for sold out tickets and premium seats. Sometimes inventory varies and it's best to check multiple sites, but Tickets-Cheapest should always represent a site to review while looking prime tickets, like floor seats for concerts. Even where ticket inventory offers less in common, Tickets-Cheapest.com can provide the lowest cost options, with Super Bowl tickets serving as a prime example. The next few times the need for event tickets to a sold out venue comes up, do a personal price comparison, findings will prove Tickets-Cheapest.com comes out cheaper than Stubhub most every time too. If the specific tickets in question come out cheaper at Stubhub by all means buy those particular ones there, but try Tickets-Cheapest.com again on the next round. Why not sit in the exact same seats for less and use the extra money for a tasty meal first?
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The site to buy Cheap Tickets online is affiliated with the Financial Firebird Corporation Travel Group. Financial Firebird Corporation, established in 2000 and a proud BBB member, provides unbiased consumer information particularly involving personal unsecured debt or mortgages, software and marketing services. These sites for consumers to buy tickets online operate in the resale market and maintain no relationship with the venues or performers. The resale ticket market allows consumers access to popular events once the box office has sold out or to buy premium seats when the venue no longer offers any inventory. Within the group of these secondary market ticket services the Financial Firebird owned ticket sites offer lower prices than competitors. Find the site at Tickets-Cheapest.com.


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Mulberry Kite launched a new seriesCategories:Other Brands
2016 spring and summer series launched the Kite Tote handbag. This innovative new series of handbags, with versatility, simplicity and practical, you can rotate the handle has two functions, there are several ways bag. Two short handles can be made portable and can be used with the long bag with shoulder. Important items can be placed inside the pocket in removable. Although the geometric lines, very smooth, both stylish and timeless, Kite Tote can be freely placed in the iconic Bayswater and near Piccadilly. This series also includes a simple trumpet Small Kite and structure handbag.
Kite series with luxurious crimson, black and tan embossed crocodile skin, and light khaki, midnight blue and nude-colored calf production.
comnum(0) tbcount(0) tbcount(241)
KATE SPADE GO FLY A KITE LUGGAGE BAGSCategories:Other Brands
Your next trip is within reach with the new 'Go Fly a Kite Luggage Satchel' from Kate Spade. Proudly display your wanderlust in your choice of cherry liqueur red or sunshine yellow.
The chic bag is a modern take on vintage luggage, but looks very now. It's made of glazed fabric with leather trim and real 14 karat gold plated hardware.
The unique design of the crossbody bag is a practical yet fashionable way to stay hands free this spring. Built to look like an old fashioned suitcase, but at a fraction of the size, you can choose from the larger 7.2"h x 9.2"w option or the smaller 3.7"h x 5.9"w if you're a lighter packer. The larger bag is €505 and the smaller bag is €370 from Kate Spade UK. One benefit to the small one is that it comes in both sunshine and cherry liqueur, while the large bag is only available in red at the moment.
Can't decide which big-ticket item to indulge in? How about a wallet of the same design to hold all your tickets and the cash you'll save? The 'Go Fly a Kite Luggage Lacey' wallet is for you. At just €250, with your option of color, it's an obvious choice. It's made of high quality crosshatched leather and proudly displays a Kate Spade logo metal plate on the front. It features 12 slots for your credit cards, a change pocket, and exterior pocket. Sure to become a staple in your closet, it looks great matched with the accompanying satchel, on it's own for a night out clutch, or with any of your other bags. Bring it with you on vacation for a cheeky statement.
After Chanel's recent runway that was set in a mock airport, the concepts of traveling and fashion are very in synch this season. Stay on top of it with these looks and feel stylish and sky-high.
Tags: bags Luggage Kate a SPADE Kite GO FLY
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MULBERRY KITE BAGCategories:Other Brands
Wanting to add a sense of flair and style to your everyday wardrobe but don't know how? Well, here's the secret ladies: own a luxury piece that will make a bold statement. The Mulberry Kite Tote Bag is the perfect accessory that will glam up your everyday office outfit.
For its Spring Summer 2016 collection, Mulberry introduced the Kite Tote which comes in different colors, designs, textures and finish. Simple yet elegant with its no-frills ensemble, this bag is making a great appearance in the fashion world. Innovative in all its angles, the Kite Tote will be the next holy grail among Mulberry fans. It boasts of a double-function handle pivoted handles that gives women the choice to carry this piece in several fashionable ways. You can tow this showstopper in your hands with its two short accessible handles or use the longer straps and turn it into a classy shoulder bag. Your essentials such as smartphone, lipstick, and car keys can be found easily inside the Kite tote for you can stash them in the detachable pouch which is hidden inside.
For women who can't make up their minds, keep your worries at bay for there are several designs you can choose from: The Midnight Flat Calf retails at $1450 USD, Camel Deep Embossed Croc Print at $1590 USD and Neon Yellow Ostrich $12,000 USD.
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Mulberry Kite Tote Bag Reference GuideCategories:Other Brands
Introducing the Mulberry Kite Tote Bag. This newest bag from Mulberry is from the brand's Resort 2016 Collection. The Kite Tote features a minimalist design with a bucket shape. It has soft gold components with rounded rivets. It comes in two sizes, Kite Tote and Small Kite Tote. The regular size comes with two short handles for hand carry or to wear on the crook of the arm. It also comes with two longer handles for shoulder carry. It has a leather tab and a snap hook closure. The interior is made of suede and includes a removable zipped pouch. The Small size has one short strap and one long adjustable strap that can be worn on the shoulder or across the body. It has a microfiber interior with one internal zip pocket.
The Kite is also available in Clutch bag. It has a top zip closure and a zip handle.
Kite Tote
|Mulberry Ostrich Kite Tote Bag
|13" H x 14" W x 9.6" D
|Mulberry Haircalf Kite Tote Bag
|Mulberry Deep Embossed Croc Print Kite Tote Bag
|Mulberry Flat Calf Kite Tote Bag
Small Kite Tote
|Mulberry Flat Calf Kite Tote Small Bag
|9.8" H x 11" W x 5.9" D
Kite Clutch
|Mulberry Deep Embossed Croc Print Kite Clutch Bag
|7.7" H x 11.8" W x 1" D
Source: Mulberry


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New Dance Sweeping In The Midwest Called "Swag Cruzin"
H reports "Swag Cruzin Is A new DANCE that SWEEPING the MIDWEST and Downsouth by storm Check it out.......Even the lil kid in the red is Swag Cruzin...."
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Chairman Statement on the Planned Executions in Arkansas
Bishop Frank J. Dewane, April 13, 2017
USCCB Chairmen Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski and Cardinal Seán O'Malley Call for Recomittment to Bishop's
Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty
July 16, 2015
Release: Cardinal O'Malley and Archbishop Wenski Welcome Supreme Court
Decision To Review Protocols for Use of Lethal Injection
January 27, 2015
Bishop Blaire Welcomes Repeal Of Death Penalty In Maryland
May 2, 2013
Bishops Welcome Connecticut Death Penalty Repeal
April 26, 2012
USCCB, Illinois Bishops Laud State's Death Penalty Repeal
March 10, 2011
Bishops Urge Illinois Governor to Sign Bill Ending Death Penalty
March 3, 2011
Bishops Congratulate New Mexico on Death Penalty's Repeal
March 19, 2009
Bishops Urge NM Governor to Sign Death Penalty Repeal
Bishop William F. Murphy, March 16, 2009
Bishops Launch Major Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty |En Español
March 21, 2005
Bishops Commend Governor's Clemency to Death Row Inmates
January 16, 2003
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Tips for property owners who want to remove graffiti themselves.
Printable Fighting Graffiti brochure
Waiver form for graffiti removal on private property
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Electromach » Home » May 2010 » ATEX audits
Additional ATEX audits are to be expected
The regulation body has announced it will increase labor inspections in 2010 at companies dealing in hazardous environments. The stated European objective is to reduce the occupational accidents with 25% by 2012. This plan has been forwarded to the second house of the parliament by Minister Donner of Social Affairs.
More: http://www2.nen.nl/nen/servlet/dispatcher.Dispatcher?id=287525
(source: NEN)


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Hot Words for the SAT I: The 350 Words You Need to Know
Barron's Educational Series, 1998 - SAT (Educational test) - 200 pages
Filled with words that students are likely to encounter when they take the SAT I, or any one of many other verbal skills tests, this book also features several new practice exercises and short tests.
From inside the book
13 pages matching devious in this book
Where's the rest of this book?
Results 1-3 of 13
What people are saying - Write a review
LibraryThing ReviewUser Review - heina - LibraryThing
Advice from an SAT instructor: vocabulary is even less important on the SAT than it was before its most recent change, so focus on your test-taking technique rather than on books like these. Expanding ... Read full review
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Hot words for the SAT: the 350 words you need to know
Murray Bromberg,Julius Liebb
Snippet view - 1989
Common terms and phrases
acclaim acquiesce affinity altruistic ANALOGIES antithesis aversion bizarre BLANK bombastic cajole callous catharsis caustic chastise chimerical clairvoyant composure condone crass criticism cryptic definitions in Column demeanor devious diatribe disparage distraught egregious embroil enigma esoteric euphemism evanescent exemplary F False F Lesson FALSE Based FALSE l.T five lettered pairs flagrant following sentences fortuitous g FILL galvanize garrulous Greek Greek mythology HEADLINES Select hedonist heretic iconoclast identify the following imperturbable incisive insipid intractable irrefutable jargon labyrinth lackluster laconic lampoon Latin lethargic Match the words MATCHING Match meanings in Column mixed government morose nonchalance noun pariah peerless person peruse philistine pique placate plagiarize pompous quandary querulous quixotic raconteur rancor raze READING PASSAGE recluse refused remorse reputation residual respite Review Exercises scapegoat someone speech SPOTLIGHT stoic supercilious surreptitious tactless talon tangential tawdry terse threadbare tion tirade TRUE OR FALSE unassailable unethical viable vicarious vitriolic words in Column words or phrases zany


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Today's middle school referendum is still on, despite a wet, snowy start to the day.
Town officials said Derynoski School was plowed and that there was a resident was resident waiting to vote when the polls opened at 6 a.m. The polls, only at Derynoski Elementary School, are open until 8 p.m. tonight.
Southington school officials are hoping that residents will once again approve renovations at Kennedy and DePaolo Middle Schools. The renovations were overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2011, but the renovations were sent back to referendum after it was discovered that the removal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) would significantly drive up cost estimates.
This is the first time in town history that a project was sent back to referendum.
Residents had overwhelmingly supported the renovations back in 2011 and said he felt that they would again Tuesday.
The middle school building committee was shocked last November, when architect Fletcher Thompson and construction manager Newfield predicted that the cost of the overall project would be far greater than the $85 million that was approved by voters at the 2011 referendum. Earlier information from the companies suggested that the costs would only be about 2 percent over budget, but officials were told that it could be as high as 10 percent.
Fletcher Thompson blamed the estimated additional costs on "schematic mistakes." The initial plan presented for the middle schools had miscalculations involving square footage and did not include firewalls, a required public safety measure.
The committee approved a value-engineering plan for the project which would shave $9.7 million off the final cost of the project. However, it was intended to be used to balance out the anticipated costs of remediating the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) found in both schools.
The abatement costs are expected to be between $6 million and $14 million, depending on whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires the town to deal with the contaminated "wall vapor barriers" deep inside the walls of the buildings.
Despite the committee's best efforts, it was determined that another $4 million would be needed to finish the project. The Town Council then began the process of scheduling a second referendum for the same project, which is unprecedented in Southington's history.
Officials received verbal confirmation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year that the cheaper plan for the remediation of hazardous materials will likely be approved. However, firm numbers will not likely be available until after the referendum.
The remediation work will be done at times students are not in schools, including the summers of 2013 and 2014 and some of the week-long school vacations if necessary.
It is worth noting that the reduced square footage of the updated plan makes the project eligible for increased state reimbursement. The state was set to reimburse the town for 52.5 percent of the previous plan, while the new plan is eligible for 56 percent reimbursement.
This change in reimbursement means that the town will likely save some tax dollars with the updated proposal. However, Town Attorney Mark Sciota said that there is the possibility that the town could see a smaller reimbursement rate due to state finances.
Officials estimated that the savings would be in the $1 million to $1.5 million range.
The referendum is today, at Derynoski Elementary School from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.


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XXII EEP Regional Forum: Renewable Energy for Productive Uses in Central America
OBJECTIVE: To promote the development of generation and energy efficiency initiatives through the sustainable use of natural resources in Central America. As well to facilitate the exchange of experiences and results obtained, between the framework of renewable energy projects supported by the Energy and Environment Partnership with Central America.
PARTICIPANTS: Officials from the Ministries of Energy and Environment from the Central American System for Integration (SICA) countries, international and regional institutions, NGO's, academics, journalists, and private sector.
LANGUAGES: Simultaneous translation English – Spanish
Senior Fellow and Worldwatch President Emeritus, Christopher Flavin will be presenting the Institute's The Way Forward for Renewable Energy in Central America report at the forum.


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President Obama on Tuesday (Sept. 25) gave a forceful speech at the United Nations, in which he challenged much of the world's assumptions about free speech and religion.
Here are five points from his address, which together, add up to as close to an Obama Doctrine on Religion as we've seen:
1. Blasphemy must be tolerated, however intolerable
The idea that the U.S. protects even vile speech, so ingrained in American culture, seems counterintuitive to much of the world. It's an especially tough concept when speech targets a religion, but Obama argued that restrictions on speech too often become weapons to suppress religion ― especially the rights of religious minorities.
"Given the power of faith in our lives, and the passions that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech," Obama said.
Moreover, he continued, no one can control speech even if he or she wanted to.
"When anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete," Obama said.
2. Religious respect is a two-way street
Obama went on the offensive: If you're going to denounce intolerance against your own religion, he said, you must also call out those who demean the religion of others.
"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam," the president said. "Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied."
3. Turn the other cheek
In the wake of riots across the Muslim world sparked by the anti-Muslim film "The Innocence of Muslims," Obama called violence an illegitimate reaction to offensive speech, religious or otherwise.
"There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan."
4. One nation under God
Obama drew on the religious diversity of the U.S. to make his case for tolerance abroad.
"We are a country that has welcomed people of every race and religion. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country," he said. "We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them."
Religion scholar Diana Butler Bass said the president went further, presenting a modern vision of American exceptionalism from which the rest of the world can learn, "where the U.S. is uniquely positioned to offer a vision of pluralism."
"It's a compelling explanation of what America can be in a diverse and connected world," she said.
5. The danger of extremism
The democratic movements sweeping the Arab world could be derailed by intolerance rooted in religious difference, Obama warned. He made the preservation of the Arab Spring a global responsibility.
"It is time to marginalize those who ― even when not resorting to violence ― use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as a central principle of politics," he said. "For that only gives cover, and sometimes makes excuses, for those who resort to violence."


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Allemand was born on December 20, 1983, in Howard Beach to parents Eugene and Donna Allemand in Howard Beach. She grew up on Staten Island.
Police officers guarded the door to the funeral home and prevented anyone but family and friends from entering. A funeral director said the family had formally declined to make a comment on the death of Allemand.
Allemand was reportedly distraught over a fight she had with boyfriend Ryan Anderson, a point guard with the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans.
The 29-year-old reality television star wrapped a vacuum cleaner cord around her neck and hung herself.
A funeral was held at Trinity Grace Church in Chelsea, where roughly 150 family and friends came to pay their last respects.


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We (London Borough of Havering Council) provide this service (Citizen Space). The technology behind this service and its operation is provided by Delib.
When you submit information to us using this service, it's treated sensitively in accordance with data protection principles.
For information you submit:
Delib's privacy policy explains how Delib will collect, safeguard and process your data on behalf of London Borough of Havering Council.


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FIFA 13 Wii U gets first trailer, shows off GamePad functions
FIFA 13 on Wii U has received its first trailer from EA Sports, showing off some of its bespoke GamePad features, such as pointing to pass, tapping to tackle, and shaking to shoot. See what they did there? Watch the clip below.


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The South Carolina running back and former Byrnes star has the work ethic and demeanor to make in the NFL despite two devastating knee injuries in two seasons.
If odds could be placed on South Carolina tailback Marcus Lattimore adequately recovering from a second serious knee injury to have a productive NFL career, Vegas would love the guy as a heavy favorite.
With a work ethic second to none, strong self-belief and the spiritual backing not only from family, friends and teammates, but even from strangers across the nation, the former Byrnes star is one guy you don't ever want to bet against.
"I wouldn't change anything that's happened these past three years because it made me a better person, a better man, and it's going to make me a better person in the future knowing I can get through anything and I will get through this," Lattimore said.
No regrets from a young man who, at least for the time being, has lost millions of guaranteed dollars and who is undergoing a painful physical rehabilitation for the second time in two years?
If it was anybody else I'd consider that mere lip-service, somebody being the stand-up guy and telling people what you think they want to hear. But anybody who knows or has spent time around Lattimore will fully believe every word coming from an athlete who truly is the real deal in a world that's become increasingly superficial.
Displaying his usual humble manner during Wednesday's news conference announcing his decision to forgo his senior season for the NFL, Lattimore ran down a thank-you list that would make most sent by children to Santa at the North Pole miniscule by comparison.
I don't think the South Carolina tailback forgot even the most inconsequential person responsible for his success both as a student and athlete during his time in college. It's that type of connection he's made with people since bursting onto the scene in Duncan as a young prep star that has made him arguably the most beloved athlete in USC history despite playing only 29 career games.
Lattimore could have a lot of regrets about an injury-plagued three years at the school, where serious issues with both knees derailed him from legendary status on the field and earning untold millions off of it.
Of course the 21-year-old has already cemented his substantial legacy in Columbia, where his athletic talent and ability to touch and inspire others won't soon — if ever — be forgotten. And there's still the chance for a successful and financially rewarding professional football career, it's just that the odds right now are stacked against him.
But they are beatable.
Look no further than NFL star runners Willis McGahee and Frank Gore, who both returned from devastating knee injuries to post Pro-Bowl careers. Carolina linebacker Thomas Davis has thus far survived a full and healthy season after suffering three ACL tears in the same knee.
It can be done, and the amazing reality of it all for those of us who watched with despair as Lattimore went down — many of us immediately thinking his career could well be over — is that it actually could've been far worse.
"Marcus is blessed in the fact he had a lot of critical things that could've happened to his knee not happen," said Dr. Jeffrey Guy, who performed Lattimore's ACL reconstruction in addition to reattaching and supplementing two other ligaments in the knee. "You look at the video and say, wow, that's an amazing thing that happened to his knee and he couldn't possibly come back.
"But these days in the industry we have the technique to put things back together that might not have been fixable 20 years ago."
It's certainly far from an easy fix by today's standards as well, but if anybody is willing to put in the level of blood, sweat and tears required to pull off such a bionic feat, I'm putting my money on Marcus Lattimore.