text:
|Made In China
|Transportation / Car Accessories / Car Electronics
|Toyota Camry dvd , Toyota camry gps , camry navigation
/ pc
|Min. Order:
|1 pc
|Live Chat:
|Last Online:22 Aug, 2017
It may not fit all versions and all years, so pay attention to the size of this DVD palyer and your original radio please.
Special VW Passat DVD player,built-in GPS navigation system, Digital touchscreen,8.0 inch monitor,2 din DVD player,800*480 resolution HD TFT,Radio, TV, DVD, DIVX, Bluetooth, A2DP, IPod, USB, SD, RDS, Dual Zone, Picture in Picture, Steering wheel control,DIY button illumination colors
Key Features:
car dvd gps player for Toyota Camry 2006- 2011
1. New Super 8 inch, 3D interface Win CE 6.0 system(800*480)double din car DVD player with touch screen for Toyota Camry 2006- 2011 car
OSD MENU: Russian, French, English, German, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese
2. Build in GPS Navigation (SAMSUNG Chip) WINCE6.0 SYSTEM ;PIP FUNCTION
Build in Bluetooth,play your mobile phone muisc via Bluetooth,build in MIC in front panel easy to talk in your car.
3. Fully compatible with MP4(AVI/DIVX/MP3/DVD/DIVX/VCD/CD/CD-R/CD-RW/MPEG ect)
4. With USB in front panel and two slots SD connnect ports,read the pictures,music,avi files from USB/SD card !
5. Rear AUX input - can also connect to your MP3 player or other devices. Video and Audio both input & output Ipod Function
6. Build-in FM and AM,Compatibe USA/EUROPE/RUSSIA radio system,Listen music on the way and
Radio Data System RDS FUNCTION.
7. Analog TV build in ,Multi-TV System,Compatibe PAL/NTSC/SECAM TV System.
8. 2 way video output,1 way subwoof audio output
9. built-in amplifier (60W x 4 channels amplifier)
10. channel video output ,very easy to connect with the external av device and compose a perfect car AC entertainment system
11. DVD memory fuction
12. Rear-view camera input
13. Auto Swith to the backing car display status when backing a car,if external camera is available,the car rear status cab be screen on the screen in real time to ensure the safety
14. Dual Zone fuction: Picture in picture function. can listen the favour music / watching DVD while GPS navigation. so cool.
15. 3D menu
16. Powerful Electronic Anti-shock
17. Steering Wheel control18. USB HOST supports external 3G WIFI network card
|Price Terms:
|Payment Terms:
|Paypal/West Union/Money Gram/TT
|Lead Time:
|3 working days


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I guess it's a good thing that I keep stumbling across images in my Library that I like but have forgotten about. And make good candidates for a strong black and white treatment. Such is the case below.
This was captured last November while in Vancouver. View from downtown about a block from the amazing Olympic torch (posted here). Sun was falling and the clouds were glowing. More so when rendered with strong intent. Courtesy of Silver Efex Pro 2 with two conversions applied and masked together, one for sky and another for mountains and below.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Willows on Michigan
Kalamazoo Student Housing
Like what you see? It just takes a minute to fill out an application. Click the button to the right to be redirected to our online application.
About the Willows
The Willows on Michigan is a quiet, cozy place not to far from WMU. It is located at 3301 W Michigan Ave and it offers newly remodeled two bedrooms units. The Willows is a safe, clean, affordable place to call home.
From floor to ceiling each unit is being remodeled with new appliances, new cabinets, new flooring, paint, fixtures, and tub surrounds. Just take a look at the pictures you will be amazed!
Floor to Ceiling Remodeled
2 Bedroom – Starting at $395 (per bedroom)
The Willows rent includes:
- Free HEAT
- Free Internet
- Free Water & Sewer
- Free Trash, parking, lawn care and snow removal
- 24 Hour Maintenance
- On Site Laundry
- Near WMU and downtown Kalamazoo


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What is the plural form of octopus? Octopuses? Octopi?
Shower curtain
Salad Plate
Shelf decor
Glass octopus
Octopus Decor
Posted by Erica at 10/11/2010
7 comments:
Love the shower curtain! FYI: As far as the plural conundrum goes, octopuses is correct, while octopi is often used but generally considered incorrect. My personal favorite plural form of octopus though is octopodes (oc-TOP-ah-dees). =)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousOctober 11, 2010 at 1:57 PM
I loved that 3-piece framed artwork ... until I clicked the link and saw it was $3,750!! Yikes! Time to DIY! LOL.ReplyDelete
I never would have thought an octopus motif to be so pleasing...love the glass octo and the shower curtain.ReplyDelete
LOVE. I totally recognize that Blue wall art from Bill and Gill's apartment :) haha cute blog!ReplyDelete
I love the large wall art!ReplyDelete
DO you know where the Entryway print came from? I ADORE IT!ReplyDelete
LOVE that shower curtain! So fun! Great finds!ReplyDelete
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I'm still working through numerous photos and trying to edit them – several of today's blog batch are those our MSc Plant Diversity (#MScPlDiv) students tried to identify the next day. Note that not all the names scribbled on the paper towel are correct. All of those look a bit wizened however there are also other fungi brought to the lab on Sunday and photographed on the day. Thanks to Mike Harrison for correcting may IDs and supplying others.
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Campus Wildlife Champions – T&L Exchange on Campus Species Lists
- Powdery Mildew Survey 2016 | Culham Research Group on Powdery mildew – 2014
- Powdery Mildew Survey 2016 | Culham Research Group on Powdery mildew – 2015
- Alastair Culham on Mammals
- 2015 Powdery Mildew Survey Results | Culham Research Group on 2015 powdery mildew species review
Kite SiteMy Tweets


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Here To Help You Succeed
Owner/Head Coach
Taylor is an owner and head coach at Man O'War Fitness. Starting at the tender age of 6, he's led an active lifestyle that's consisted of track, Olympic Weightlifting, and even bowling. In 2007, he began his career as a personal trainer where he worked with high school, collegiate, and professional athletes. A few years later, a friend introduced him to the CrossFit Games which immediately piqued his interest.
Taylor started doing his own CrossFit workouts before joining forces with Jason to start their own affiliate. "As a coach, my main motivation for coming in the gym is to help our members reach their goals and be the healthiest they can be. I'm consistently inspired by their progress and drive. They always want to do more, so they can be more."
CrossFit Level 1
CPR & AED/First Aid Certified
USA Weightlifting Sports Performance
Owner/Head Trainer
Jason is an owner and head trainer at Man O' War Fitness. He's a lifetime athlete with competitive experience in basketball, baseball, and football, as well as combat sports such as wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts. After two traumatic injuries (ACL tears) Jason was forced to stop competing and shift his focus to sport specific coaching and personal training.
"In 2008 I began working with general population clientele as well as amateur MMA athletes. By 2010, I was coaching mostly professional fighters and collegiate athletes at a premier sport specific training facility (HIIT Center)." Jason's time there served as a gateway to CrossFit and Olympic Weightlifting. By 2012, he and Taylor Johnson had opened their own affiliate, and have been changing lives ever since!
CPR & AED Certified
USA Weightlifting Sports Performance
General Manager/Coach
Clayton has always been enthusiastic about athletics. In high school, he played football and ran track. Later, he began climbing, boxing, Olympic weightlifting, and anything else that could keep his attention. After graduating college, Clayton met Jason, one of the owners of Man O' War Fitness. "He convinced me to quit my office job and come work with him. We slowly transitioned to CrossFit because it was the right mix of functional fitness and competitive training." Clayton is passionate about helping those who want to help themselves. He also believes in staying on top of the latest fitness trends and methods. Education is the key to success for both himself and his clients.
USA Weightlifting Sports Performance
Come And Find Us
Located in Regency Center, just off Nicholasville rd in Lexington!


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To subscribe to IdentityProtect, click on the Protect My Identity button and complete the registration form. After the 7-Day IdentityProtect Risk-Free Trial your credit/debit card will be charged/debited the membership fee of $19.95 per month, plus tax where applicable, and then automatically charged/debited each month at the then-current membership fee so long as you remain a member. The membership fee will appear on your credit/debit card account statement as "PCH*INTELIUS.COM/SB." If you wish to cancel within the first 7 days of your membership, you can do so either by calling us at (877) 974-1563 or by visiting the "My Account" section of the Intelius.com website and then going to the "My Services" tab, and terminate your subscription and you will not be charged. After the first 7 days, you may also cancel your membership at any time by calling us or going online and if you cancel, you will not be charged future monthly fees and your benefits will contine through the month for which you have paid. If you use a debit card today, your monthly membership fee for IdentityProtect will be automatically debited each month on or about the same date from the checking account associated with your debit card so long as you remain a member. If you use a credit card, it will be charged similarly each month. Identity monitoring begins the Sunday following your enrollment.
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हिन्दी / English
Friday, December 20, 2011
New Delhi, Dec 20 (PTI) Seeking to boost innovation, a bill to set up a regional centre in biotechnology, under the auspices of the UNESCO, in the National Capital Region (NCR) was introduced in the Lok Sabha today. Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh introduced the Regional Centre for Biotechnology Bill to set up the institution to undertake research in the field of biotechnology. The centre proposes to engage students in research by integrating science, engineering and medicine with a view to creating high quality human resource in disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas. The bill also seeks to create physical infrastructure in critical platform technologies to support inter-disciplinary education training and research in biotechnology for providing interface between agriculture or veterinary sciences and engineers and environmental biologists, ecologists and engineers for agricultural and environmental technologies in order to help molecular breeding, bio-energy and green technologies. The centre is expected to help produce human resources tailored to drive innovation in biotechnology, particularly in areas of new opportunities and to fill talent gap in deficient areas. (IBN Live, Dec 20, 2011)


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School is the only place where everyone has their special memories. Whether it's an individual portrait or a group photograph of your entire school, you've come to the right place. We have the best School Photography. Let's see one of the best moments with school children.
Picnic in the Rail Musume
The picnic is the most memorable part of school life. Everyone wants that picnic to be memorable. Creating many memories and exploring them is the most refreshing thing.
Every School should capture those moments. Here Bachpan A Play School arranged a picnic in Rail Musume in Delhi and also invited Mypictures247 for capturing their moments.
Let's have look at special moments of Bachpan A Play School Paschim Vihar.
National Railway Museum is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Delhi. It describes the Railway history of India. The museum is placed in Chanakyapuri and was founded on Feb 1st, 1977.
Some other main attractions of this museum are Patiala State Monorail Trainways, the Fairy Queen, Fire Engine, Fireless steam locomotive, Kalka Shimla Rail Bus, Crane Tank, Betty Tramways among the rest. The Fairy Queen, the world's oldest operating steam locomotive, is also qualified by the Guinness Book of Records.
Nothing's better than a picnic.
Caring Staff…
Life is like a roller coaster, live it, be happy, enjoy life.
So plan your picnic now, and book you School Photography with Mypictures247 We have more exciting offers and packages for school. Contact or comment below now for any query.
Have look at more pictures, daily updates and offers on Instagram @mypictures247.


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Hi everyone! I know I've been a little out this week, but I finally got a little free time and I just needed to relax. I had one whole holiday week and I've been going to the beach, hanging out with friends and partying a little.
On Thursday I went to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 premiere and it was really good! I still prefer the first trilogy, but this one was much better than its predecessor. I still don't see Andrew Garfield as Spidey, but I liked the personality they gave to the character. He was a lot funnier and I loved his sense of humor, but I just think Andrew doesn't match that persona.
I loved Jamie Foxx as Electro, it was different from the one we all Spider-Man fans know, but I really liked him. The only think I really really didn't like was the actor they chose to play Harry Osborn. What the hell happened to James Franco???? haha. Emma Stone was perfect like always and she looks stunning in the movie.
One of my favorite things of the movie is that it gives many hints of what's to come. Felicia Hardy (AKA Black Cat) finally makes her appearance, I hope she gets an important part in the next movie!! I just need to see Black Cat on screen!!
In my opinion they could've made better villains out of the Green Goblin and Rhino, but they weren't as bad as Lizard in the first movie. Anyways, I had a lot of fun watching the movie and I can't wait to see what they come up with next time.
My favorite Spidey movie is still Spider-Man 2, will the next one beat that? It's difficult, but we'll see!
My Rating: 75/100


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While I'm certain we can all go to the shops and find a million and one things we'd like to buy for ourselves, shopping for men can be a little trickier.
Especially when they don't even tell you what they want! Marcus is typically - "I dunno, just get me whatever" and I'm always like "Sorry honey, they don't sell 'whatever's' at Westfield, I need a proper list!"
I know I'm not the only one who's been through this struggle. That's why SWIISH has decided to address this problem once and for all by putting together a whole list of fab gift ideas for your all the main men in your life. Whether it's for your hubby, brother, uncle, dad, colleague or father-in-law, these gifts are bound to leave you in the good books…
Personalised Passport Holder – Monpurse, $69
Carter Aviator Sunglasses – Ted Baker, $169
Personalised Cufflinks – Uberkate, $295
Grey & Navy Sweatshirt – Boden, $84
'Clean and Lean for Life' Recipe Book – Booktopia, $47.25
George Overnighter Bag – Sportscraft, $139.99
Linen Shirt – JAG, $63.96
Blue Mens Board Short – Cancer Council, $44.95
Coco Jack Starter Set – SWIISH, $90
Capino Coffee Machine – Espressotoria, $49


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We have 10,608 kg of organic lemongrass pieces we need to liquidate. Normally 3.86/lb but can do 1.97/lb. Bring all offers
Expiration: July 15, 2018
Availability: October 10, 2017
Useful information
- Avoid scams by acting locally or paying with PayPal
- Never pay with Western Union, Moneygram or other anonymous payment services
- Don't buy or sell outside of your country. Don't accept cashier cheques from outside your country
- This site is never involved in any transaction, and does not handle payments, shipping, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer "buyer protection" or "seller certification"


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I am currently working with a system that acts like a message bus. A message comes in to the service (WCF Windows Service hosted). The system then uses a service locator pattern to look up which dynamically loaded assembly will be assigned to the message. The assembly is found and then a method is executed which handles the message. The response is then sent back to the client.
The problem is that the message base is growing enormous, as well as their associated plugins. And there is a lot of code duplication. Let me give a few examples:
- GetOrderMessage
- GetExpiredOrderMessage
- GetOrderMessageByCustomerId
- Get_something_related_to_order_Message etc, etc...
As you can see, the messages are very specific. The messages themselves are simple data contracts and they contain zero business logic.
On top of this problem, there is a plug-in for some of these messages that just handles one message. Therefore, there is almost a plugin for every message type!! The system appears to support a one-to-many relationship for a message/plugin, but it appears that all the implementations are one-to-one.
How could I refactor these to reduce code duplication and make the system smarter? I would like the code to be more easily digested to developers because there is a lot of duplication happening.
(Due to some constraints, I cannot use an ORM for data access/entity creation)
In response to Robert Harvey's comment below, I would like to clarify the following:
In 99% of the use cases, the plug-in layer is just simply wrapping a data access call. Here's how it might look.
Request of GetOrderMessage ->
Order Plug-in ->
Order Data Access (ADO.NET, hand-rolled stored procedure of usp_GetOrder) ->
value returned from Order Plug-in ->
Response of GetOrderMessage returned to client


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Today is also a new start at STAMPlorations - it's the January CUTplorations challenge! You can find all the details here.
For my card, I used distress oxide inks to create the background which was inspired by the above photo. I cut black cardstock using the Flutter Zen 1 Layering dies and then stamped the Soar-Say It Big Series sentiment.


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Jio Effect: Vodafone Rs 198 Plan Now Offers 1.4GB Daily 4G Data For 28 Days, Finally, Vodafone India has joined the tariff plans revision party. The UK-based telco has now revamped the Rs 198 tariff plan in some circles as it now gives 1.4GB data per day, in-line with other private telecom operators unlimited tariff plans. The validity of this Rs 198 plan is 28 days, meaning the total data benefit offered by Vodafone is 39.2GB, still short of Jio's 56GB data offering with the Rs 198 tariff plan.
How To Recharge Vodafone Rs 198 Plans:-
1). Visit any nearest Vodafone shop or Do recharge via Paytm, Freecharge, PhonePe & Amazon.
2). Now select prepaid recharge and enter your prepaid number.
3). Then select state and choose Vodafone Rs 198 Plans.
4). Now pay the amount by your suitable payment method.
5). That's it, You'll get the message for successful recharge, Enjoy.
Vodafone Rs 198 Plans Details:-
As stated, Vodafone has revised this plan in all circles very soon. For now, Vodafone prepaid customers can recharge with the Rs 198 tariff plan and enjoy benefits of 1.4GB data per day, unlimited voice calls including roaming calls and 100 SMS per day for 28 days.
Unlike Airtel and Reliance Jio, Vodafone's unlimited voice calling comes with daily and monthly FUP. Customers on the Rs 198 prepaid plan using more than 1000 minutes (local +STD) in the period of seven days will be charged at one paise per second for the rest of the period. For example, if a customer consumes 1000 mins on the second day, he would be charged for rest of the five days.
Tags:- Vodafone Rs 198 Plan.
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- Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie was an SS officer and Gestapo member.
- He was known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured French prisoners of the Gestapo while stationed in Lyon, France.
- In 1943, he captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, and had him slowly beaten to death.
- In 1944, Barbie deported 44 young Jewish children and their seven teachers hiding in a boarding house in Izieu to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
- After the war, United States intelligence services employed him for their anti-Marxist efforts, and also helped him escape to South America.
- Barbie is suspected of having had a hand in the Bolivian coup d'état orchestrated by Luis García Meza Tejada in 1980.
- After the fall of the dictatorship, Barbie no longer had the protection of the Bolivian government, and in 1983 was extradited to France, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity and died in prison of cancer.
Key Legal Issues
- There were two large obstacles for the prosecution to clear before it could formally try to convict Barbie:
- First was choosing the crimes for which Barbie should be tried and
- Second was figuring out if French law would permit Barbie to be tried for those crimes.
- The prosecution had split into two camp: those who wanted Barbie tried for the murders, torture, and coercion he used against the Resistance;
- and those who wanted Barbie punished for his role in the Final Solution.
- All charges against Barbie that could be considered "war crimes" had to be dropped under the Statute of Limitations because Barbie had been gone for more than twenty years.
- if the prosecution could prove that Barbie had the intent of following an "ideological hegemony" when he killed, tortured, and deported, then he could be found guilty of "crimes against humanity."
- Barbie was charged with 177 crimes against humanity.
- The jurors are fairly young men and women because both the defense and the prosecution hoped that the young jurors, who not adults during the Occupation, would have a more objective view of Barbie's crimes. In addition, Barbie's punishment would have even more weight if he were tried by those who never suffered at his hands.
- Elie Wiesel was the star witness of this trial.
- The defence was trying to establish that his crimes were merely part of a soldier's duty and therefore not testable.
- For every crime attributed to Klaus Barbie, the defence would find a corresponding crime attributed to the French, claiming that the French judiciary system was corrupt.
- the prosecution was forced to prove and reprove what distinguished the Holocaust from ordinary acts of war or criminality.
- Significance: France was forced to acknowledged its role in implementing the Final Solution. The French public pays a great deal of attention to genocide or even the potential of genocide in any region of the world.
- The jurors found Klaus Barbie guilty of "crimes against humanity" and for that act sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison, France's highest punishments.


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It's not just you. United feels that way about the families of their employees, too.
But, in the aftermath of Sunday's videoed removal of a passenger that the airline described as "belligerent," United once again took the side of its employees, defending the action.
And, of course, again inviting a deluge of horrible PR.
We can debate this one all day. The airline was within its rights to do what it did. You disobey cabin crew? They can haul you off the plane. Period. But, in a world where virtually everyone carries a video camera, how completely tone deaf does management have to be to think this is (even legal) a good idea.
My favorite snippet of analysis, however, comes from Fortune Magazine, which opined, "The stock market ignored the inevitable social media storm, pushing the company's shares up 1% in recognition of United's zealous enforcement of a policy that aims to ensure full capacity utilization, and in the confident expectation that no-one really cared enough about the passenger to resist a cut-price ticket on United in future."
First, I'm pretty sure that most investors didn't wake up to the news on Monday morning, watched the video of the bloodied passenger and said, "good for United...I think I'll buy their stock today."
However, that second part of the sentence was dead on:
The airline acted "in the confident expectation that no-one really cared enough about the passenger to resist a cut-price ticket on United in future."
True 'dat.


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The movie Sex and the City 2 is nothing more than trash and white-trash, to be exact.
Indifferent to anything modest or decent, the movie jokes about women in burqas and has gossip about whether a Middle Eastern butler is gay.
The movie's director Michael Patrick King said any off-kilter notes were in keeping with the characters' normal behavior, whether they be in Abu Dhabi or New York. "The reality is Samantha Jones is outrageous wherever she goes," he said, "whether it be Starbucks … or Abu Dhabi."
I beg to differ.
"The characters are trying to make sense of [burqas]" said Nixon. "Is it their choice? Or is it men's choice and what does it make them feel?"
Under the guise of "keeping with the characters' normal behavior," the movie's director is joining the ignorant of indirectly attacking Islam and Muslims. Or may be it's a direct but camouflaged attack!
I've been to Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The cities are more modern than most U.S. cities in America. And should some women there wear the "hijab" – ignorantly referred to as Burqa, it's utterly by choice. Just as western women feel it's normal to show off their tits-and-ass and enjoy lustful looks from sex-hungry men, (who by the way look at these women as a piece of meat: I bet she's a good f&*^.. they would say), women in hijab or those very modestly dressed, think it's quite normal to be modest and honorable.
They probably wonder themselves if these "Whores-in-the-City" are whores by choice or being forced to act as such, as a result of "Western-civilized" pressures on women.


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Pulis speaks of respect for Crystal Palace
Tony Pulis said he will watch Crystal Palace as a fan in the next month but that he has "far too much energy" to walk away from management.
Ex-Palace manager Pulis left the Premier League club by mutual consent last month, just days before their season opener at Arsenal.
Pulis won the Premier League's Manager of the Year award last term for guiding the Selhurst Park outfit to safety – and ultimately 11th position – despite the perilous state he found them in when replacing Ian Holloway in November.
Disagreements with Palace co-owner Steve Parish are said to have led to Pulis' departure, namely over transfer targets.
But despite his messy departure, Pulis – who will not give up on management and is sure to be in-demand as the season progresses – does not hold a grudge and insists Palace have a place in his heart.
"At Christmas it's fair to say we had differences of opinion with respect to players coming in," Pulis told the Daily Mail.
"But, look, a chairman has every right to ask why you're doing things and challenge you. It's their football club, their money. At the end of the day, we were two adults going in different directions.
"I have no problem with that and, to be honest, I don't really want to go any further into the reasons why I left; only to say that I had a wonderful 10 months there.
"I have affection for the players. I will go and watch them in the next month.
"I did it with [former club] Stoke. Nobody knew I was there. I just bought a ticket and stood among the fans. But I'll enjoy that because I've got an association not just with the players but with the football club.
"The supporters were just magnificent. I haven't had a chance to thank them but I'd like to now.
"I won the [managers] award but they should have given it to the football club because everyone stepped up to the plate last season.
"[But] I've moved on. That's it for me. But that 10 months was as good as any 10 months you could have at a football club."
Pulis could be a target for Championship clubs Cardiff City and Fulham, who dispensed with the services of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Felix Magath respectively on Thursday.
Get the best features, fun and footballing frolics straight to your inbox every week.


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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Play House Lets Dance Loose in Long Beach
The upstairs gallery opens a little after eight, and some of us serious (read: uptight) dance fans who'd been parked on couches leftover from the building's warehouse days head right up. More low-key guests continue to arrive, sip red wine and munch on pizza from the bar until deciding to encounter some art, thanks to the show's soft start time – a brilliant idea in a city where traffic makes an eight o'clock arrival uncertain at best. Upstairs, works that mostly sit still approach themes of home, family, and the everyday: 1940's-era portraits overlaid with block letters telling the subjects' stories, a sandbox of red paper poppies bobbing in the breeze from a nearby fan, a family outing restaged with beach chairs and projected photographs. Excited chatter bubbles up from a game of bowling, but curiosity leads me on, and the flow of foot traffic pulls my focus out into the next dimly lit room.
Here, people play house. In the bedroom, Tara McArthur stuffs laundry in drawers, dropping socks and underwear absentmindedly. She tries on a pair of tight jeans, checking herself out in a mirror, and I feel more like a voyeur than a viewer. Peering around walls, furniture, and other audience members, I glimpse a scuffle over a liquor bottle at the dining room table and a woman in a flouncy apron busy at the sink and stove. Andrew Merrell enters the bedroom, and while the couple prepares for bed, self-consciousness prods me to crane, tilt and rise on tiptoe to catch parts of the drinking game turned mad musical chairs in the next room. Urgent and repeated kicking from the bed pulls me back to watch the pair on a sleepwalking stroll, treading lightly over backs, along wall and ceiling. They slump and drag into dreamy, slow motion death scenes – crossing back and forth over the line between hilarious and disturbing – but then a blaring alarm clock sends everyone into a panicked scramble over chairs, under tables, and out of the house. Several of us linger to watch the few remaining homebodies continue, apparently prolonging their performance with our presence.
Downstairs in semi-darkness, we take seats on risers and, based on the brown paper program I found after the show, I think we await the start of Bahareh Ebrahimzadeh's "The Green Movement." Ebrahimzadeh's piece revs to include the most innovative partnering and thrillingly off-balance, risky dancing I've seen in a while. A disoriented, ever-falling trio lurches side to side, arches, and turns, cutting horizontally through the space. A man in blue – Sam Propersi? – jabs a knee out toward a distant point, and hips, rib cage, shoulders, head trail along in perfectly passive sequence, unstilted by tension or competing impulse. Erin Butkevitch(?) joins him and they dance a duet full of violence and tenderness; their rolling, shifting, clutching, shoving connection conveys the complexity of human relationships with a veracity rarely achieved in movement.
We aren't sure if there'll be more dancing after the applause dies, but the ambiguity gives us permission to get up and return to the bar for more snacks, and many do. Viviana Alcazar's mellifluous "Unbroken Ties" eventually follows, a gentle duet danced by women with wonderfully unaffected stage presence and beautifully spontaneous smiles when they bound through space together. They establish such a clear and close bond that moments of unison bring delicious satisfaction. A preview of Invertigo Dance Theatre's November show, Reeling, gets me hooked on their funky, free-spirited style. Goofing off – jerking, tripping, and flopping each other around – to Wanda Jackson's 1961 rockabilly "Funnel of Love," they switch from silly to strange in a second, legs contorting around shoulders in backbends and laughs bursting nonsensically from intensely focused looks. Dancers slingshot each other across the stage, run and dive at the audience, but then darkness interrupts . . . until November.
What a fabulous show – over by 9:30, and the cast ready to start it all again at 10:00. Thanks to all for modeling a concert for today's viewers. This is how we build an audience.
Friday, September 25, 2009
When It's Not Forever
A dim pool of light reveals only form: two bodies leaning, tilted in parallel; then rolled apart, remote, withdrawn; the two connected by hands; suddenly one all tangled up; now two distinct bodies again. The opening of Meg Stuart and Philipp Gehmacher's Maybe Forever distills their journey – the remembering, processing, reliving of a love and its ending – to its essence. They come together and tear apart.
The room brightens and we see it is an eerily safe sort of place, where sound and action are muted by grey carpet and black curtains, and where a photograph of dandelions losing their fluff in the wind and melodious love songs crooned by a man in a shiny blue coat make us think pleasant thoughts. As with memory, here time passes achronologically – moments of intimacy mixed with and suddenly transformed into isolation. He beckons, laughing, backing up, and she launches into a running, jumping, full-body embrace. The impact knocks them to the floor where they scurry desperately and self-protectively apart, crumpled, clutching at their own arms and legs. He smiles shyly and reaches around her waist, then breaks off, stumbling, forearms stiffly outstretched and soft hands trembling.
From behind a microphone, Stuart reflects on the love lost: "You know when I said it's useless to be romantic these days? I take it back." Action interrupts as shoulders rise and arms shoot up, find a particular twist, bend around her head, and stay, stuck. The sequence repeats, builds, disappears and resurfaces through her broken monologue, while plastic-y creaks from her pleather jacket amplify the intense self-awareness of going over and over things said and done.
For a work (and a relationship) filled with pain, there's a noticeable absence of blame, or even determined search for answers to the question "Why did it end?" It seems that's not why we're here, but that's what I want to know. Not the immediate reason – Stuart offers a strong possibility when she quietly, almost meekly, takes back her pledge to always be faithful – but the reason for that unfaithfulness or whatever it was that led them to give up. Speaking from the past, her recorded voice asks, "What's wrong with saying forever?" and we know at some point, like most of us, that's what they hoped for.
Niko Hafkenscheid sings in a spare, simple waltz, "Your dreams, will come true, in a promised land, with me, but I won't insist, at all." First they play, staggering and circling their arms until a fall brings his head sweetly to her lap. Sitting up and holding her from behind, he makes her fingers dance and chase and duel. But moments later they insist. She grabs around his neck and thrusts his body, face-down, to the floor. He frantically folds her arms, wraps up her legs, and relocates her lifeless body. I have to think songs like Hafkenscheid's are partly to blame for filling us with hopes and desires and visions of fake love – love that doesn't exist and makes us dissatisfied with the love we find.
I read in one review that the work should have ended at 60 minutes. This is when I got tired, too. I had seen all the gestures before and I didn't want to watch them anymore. But this is the pain, revisiting what's happened again and again. And moments of revelation – when we understand that a repeated reaching is actually half of an embrace, or a trailing arm is a remnant of hands held – sustain us through the repetition. We examine the wreckage with them, seeing how their bodies have been changed, molded, and disabled by their union with and separation from each other.
Gehmacher enters at the end and speaks for the first time between dramatic organ chords. After all his physical incoherence, he forces a formal stolidity and recites the "moving on" rhetoric we've heard from friends and shrinks and talk show hosts in a letter to his lover: "I need to accept the situation . . . I cherish the times we had . . . You gave me a beginning . . . Now I'm ready. . . ." His speech is pretty convincing, but I don't think he believes it. He takes a lurching step and lifts his hands, fingers dancing and chasing, until they cover his eyes.
Performances of Maybe Forever continue at REDCAT tonight and Saturday at 8:30 pm. For tickets visit http://www.redcat.org/. General admission is $25, students $20, and CalArts $12.
Other responses to Maybe Forever:
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Luminario Ballet Receives a Warm Welcome
"If the Walls Could Scream," Jamal Story's slick and often dark look at the emotional turmoil of male-female relationships, opens the show. Women in lingerie (including some distractingly minimal briefs) stalk on bent legs, stooped forward. Tight embraces and quick manipulations with male partners turn rough as they are thrown up onto shoulders, spun at dizzying speeds, and dropped down again. A showdown of the sexes ensues, and in terms of memorable dancing the men win, hands-down. Melting into the floor on shins and rolling up out of it over shoulders, they lean and counterbalance and snake through their bodies without transition between upright and otherwise. The men's malleability actually highlights the restrictive clunkiness of their partners' point shoes, even though the women thrust limbs into extreme extension with definite power and strength.
Luminario offers a special gift with "Recuerdo," translated "I remember," by LA modern dance treasure Bella Lewitzky. First presented at UC Irvine in 1990, and here performed five years after Ms. Lewitzky's death, the work is a magnificently potent and enduringly relevant example of expressionistic modern dance. Although joined at times by a stoic female chorus or tender lover (Stevan Novakovich), Brianna Haynes journeys through memories of love and loss alone. Her red dress emphasizes Haynes' isolation from the black-clad chorus of dancers who place and embrace her with indifference until a scrim descends between them and she continues on her own. Larry Attaway's minimal, dissonant piano shifts to flowing arpeggios while the woman in red waltzes and pivots, sliding flat bare feet to inscribe soft circles. Novakovich joins her for a time by moving in close complement; her drop to the floor hinges his arms and waist, and he hovers close by. When some kind of death pulls him up and away from a seated embrace, she struggles to stay in his lap and, clutching his waist, walks with him – her feet glued to his knees. While Haynes demonstrates great ability throughout the evening, she does not quite achieve the recklessness that the "Recuerdo" solos require. The choreography is hardly diminished, however, and Lewitzky's work ends in stark silence as the woman who remembers takes her place with those in her past, forming an eerie family portrait.
Delphine Perroud lies alone in a pool of white light, the outline of her arching body drawn clearly in shadow. Alex Stabler happens upon her and, enraptured, they dance the late Michael Smuin's liquid, luminous duet, "Bouquet," first performed by the San Francisco Ballet in 1981. With abandon made possible by complete trust and intimacy, Perroud falls forward toward her partner, and he meets her at precisely the right moment to accelerate the movement sideways; they slide off together and Perroud magically tumbles into an ecstatic, reaching lift. Although technically danced quite beautifully, I found Perroud and Stabler's performance too light and showy for Smuin's passionate movement; the lovers often seem oriented more toward their audience than each other, racing perfunctorily through some of the work's most tender caresses.
LedZAerial (2003), an aerial ballet suite danced, flipped, climbed, hung and swung to the music of Led Zeppelin, follows intermission. The three dances of LedZAerial build in intensity, and in excellent theatrical form, choreographers Judith Flex Helle, Bianca Sapetto, Russ Stark and Dreya Weber unleash increasingly impressive effects as the suite continues. Suspended high above the stage in rings and curtains of cloth, dancers twist and flip with such speed and dexterity that I lose track of which limbs are arms, which legs, and whether heads are up or down, but see only morphing shapes, centrifugal motion, and perilous falls. In the last two sections, the uninterrupted symmetry of spatial design and movement dulls the visual impact of the three aerialists' remarkable maneuvers. However, Brett Womack and Alex Stabler's rolls, unwinding down the lengths of cloth to the stage, and Bianca Sapetto's exhilarating abandon in swings and drops still alter my breathing as I think and write about them now.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
TriArt Festival Brings LA Dance to San Pedro
Eager for the rare opportunity to see several acclaimed local dance companies – Kenneth Walker Dance Project, La Danserie, Louise Reichlin & Dancers, and Creations Dance Theatre – in one free concert, I attended the third annual TriArt Festival in San Pedro this past Sunday afternoon. The festival is one of many recent, encouraging efforts to breathe new life into the downtown area near Port Los Angeles, and this year the scope of the two-day event broadened to include dance for the first time. I left delighted, and I can only imagine that the performance secured a return engagement for dance at TriArt.
I didn't catch a title for the first piece on the program – Kenneth Walker's sparse study of beautifully orchestrated body geometries interrupted by quirky gestures. Cool, collected leg extensions are joined by kneading, fluttering hands and shaking hips, and I can't help but think of Merce Cunningham. In this world all actions – virtuosic and pedestrian alike – are deliberate, restrained, executed with precision and the noble carriage of an upright torso. A gorgeous female duet presses against the limits of the downstage space, finely-articulated legs swiveling and slicing through intersecting planes in complementary timings. The Cagean soundtrack (complete with passing train) blends well with the city noise of San Pedro, but I would love to see this work clarified against the dark scrim of a proscenium stage and set loose to run and fall with freedom in a larger space.
La Danserie follows with three pieces, including excerpts from Judy Pisarro-Grant's trio, "Fun and Games." The title leads us to see hints of jumping rope, hopscotching, hula hooping and folk dancing within the buoyant petit allegros and between the controlled pirouettes of this fresh work. Candice Sanchez's openly playful perches and ecstatic backbends contrast with the sly, reserved calm of Meagen Mendoza's impossibly sustained balances, adding dimension to what initially seems a straightforward music visualization. The dancing also resists the energy and drive of Mozart's Symphony no. 25 in G minor to a surprising degree; Sanchez, Mendoza and Mary Wilson enjoy unwavering command and composure throughout. These intriguing performance qualities, along with movements like the wide hip swivel into classical rond de jambe, recall the teasing and entertaining twists on the ballet vocabulary of Twyla Tharp's Push Comes to Shove. With a cool flick of the wrist, Sanchez catches the other two up in the swirling motion of an arabesque en tournant and sweeps them along with her. Near the end of the selection, the dancers' control grows a bit stale in contrast to the frequent, radical musical shifts, and I want to see the trio pushed out of comfort, poise and formality toward effort and exhaustion. I will be curious to see how things resolve in the full piece.
Louise Reichlin & Dancers' "Grounding," a short excerpt from The Better to Bite You With, is perfectly situated on the program, after several contemporary ballet works, for maximum impact. In Linda Borough's wonderfully bizarre spandex suits – magenta, teal and animal prints, with enlarged antelope horns and globby frog fingers – dancers lunge, scratch, and straddle low to the ground, watching warily, until their actions accelerate into exhilarating leaps and enthusiastic handstands. Although peppered with some conventional jazz moves, the strength and curious vitality of this glimpse (and especially in
True to the company's educational mission, Reichlin opens their final selection with a pithy discussion of the elements of dance and the role of tennis rackets as props in her signature work, The Tennis Dances. Premiered in 1979 and here performed in excerpts, the piece echoes for me some of the uncomfortable cultural representations of The Nutcracker, but most sections charm with spirited dancing and inventive choreography – allowing tennis rackets to create new partnering relationships, weight distributions, body timings and shapes. The opening duet kicks off the suite with a wonderful sense of play, as Park tumbles over Steven Nielsen's back and the two twirl with dizzying momentum. As extensions of their limbs, the rackets allow them to connect from twisted, inverted, distant positions and unravel miraculously with one swift pull. Then a wave of dancers, clad in the white blouses and skirts of the 1920s leisure class at play, catches Park and Nielsen up in a carefree tennis waltz, and they're off!
In another momentous shift, Kenneth Walker company member Felicia Guzman returns with Creations Dance Theatre to perform "Kitri's Desafio," a variation from Marius Petipa's highly classical ballet Don Quixote, with majesty, heat, and metallic sharpness. The choreography demands instantaneous shifts of direction and impeccably accurate arrivals, all of which Guzman achieves with a power communicated through confident épaulement and a direct, challenging gaze. Guzman's co-director, Raquel Cordova, demonstrates talents as choreographer and dancer in the show-closer, "Creations." Joined by fellow CDT dancers, Cordova breaks into complex polyrhythms and strong, grounded movement influenced by African and Latin dance traditions – rib cage, hips, shoulders articulated freely and independently in mesmerizing coordinations. The work radiates with the energy of gifted young dancers striking out to create on their own and ends much too soon. I'm sure it's only a taste of more to come.
Many thanks to these four fertile companies and TriArt Festival director Joe Caccavalla for making dance happen in San Pedro; the marriage of tangible community support and excellent dancing on this afternoon was thrilling.
Photo: Meagen Mendoza performing "Fun and Games" by Judy Pisarro-Grant
Used with permission, © 2009 Eric Pisarro-Grant. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
El Colegio Del Cuerpo at California Plaza
The opening work, introduced by the company's co-director Álvaro Restrepo as a collage of excerpts from their repertoire, makes wonderful use of the particularities of the Watercourt stage and must have been shaped significantly for this particular venue. The entire company of dancers begins slowly, skimming the stage in diaphanous gowns glowing sapphire, emerald, gold, crimson. As their minimal gestures intensify to sharp, accented and unpredictable flexes, these percussive movements seem to throw columns of water upward, creating a mesmerizing relationship between human and fluvial action. The company's investment in this particular performance communicates great respect for audience members; El Colegio Del Cuerpo recognizes the beauties and possibilities of our shared space and gives us the opportunity to celebrate them together.
As dancers repeat the subtle flexes and shifts of weight, I feel my attention wane and remember the challenge of performing in such a boundless space. The meditative energy of their deliberate, ritual-like movements dissipates not only under the night sky, but in the running of restless children, the pacing of latecomers in search of empty seats, and the casual comings and goings of a free, outdoor performance. Now gathering the folds of their gowns, they reveal strong legs and feet, stomping and scuffling in clear rhythm, and I enjoy this wonderful contrast to the softly flowing skirts. When they descend into the pool below, their arched torsos and odd flinches resemble the flutterings of water birds gliding along the green surface.
A quick dimming of the lights and, stripped from burkha-like robes down to briefs and bras, dancers enter the stage one at a time, performing leaps, turns and flips. Although generally impressive and well executed – like one woman's miraculous, blind flying tumble over a partner's shoulder – the solos and duets of this section lack craft and coordination. The movement also often needs more follow-through, but moments when finely articulated waves ripple through the dancers' torsos enchant with precision and control.
Following intermission, Marie-France Delieuvin's The Other Apostle begins promisingly with an intriguing solo; the male dancer seems magically transported to each curious position, unbound by the human necessity of transitions. He fades, and as interlocking gears in a clock, two men place and replace each other, their ticking limbs creating dynamic exchanges and subtle weight shifts. These opening sections captivate, but recorded excerpts from Jóse Saramago's novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ that identify individual dancers as Jesus or Thomas, and program notes infused with the sacred feminine lingo of pop lit warn of the heavy-handed, often maddeningly literal nature of the work.
Although well crafted, beautifully performed movement continues through much of Apostle, the poorly written, poorly translated, or poorly read text so completely dominates the dancing and our minds that it eventually becomes impossible to appreciate any of it. Repetition of compositional forms, false endings, and the sheer length of the work don't help either. Often functioning as straight narration, Saramago's words limit Delieuvin's work and our imaginative capabilities by telling us what to see on stage. I must admit that after enduring the overbearing text and trying hard to appreciate the dancing for at least an hour, I gave up and left early.


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In Africa, the application of neo-liberal policies has been led by the IMF and the World Bank in their role as what Susan George has called 'collection agencies for the creditor countries' (George, 1993: 63). Following the decline of the European empires after 1945, many newly independent African countries found that a downside of their newfound 'freedom' was the legacy of a massive burden of debt.
This debt continued to grow, particularly following the world recession of the 1970s, so that by the late 1980s the value of the continent's debt relative to its export earning was 500 per cent (Watkins, 1995: 74). Consequently, the IMF and World Bank, acting in the interests of the industrial countries that had created them, began to look for new ways to make Africa pay back its creditors.
In 1981 the World Bank produced the Berg Report that blamed Africa's economic problems firmly upon the failure of African states to manage their own economies effectively. The Report set out the alleged need for what was called the 'structural adjustment' of African states.
This primarily involved the assertion of neo-liberal reforms of Africa's economic and political structures in an attempt to render them efficient and thereby enable them to honour their debts. Loans from the IMF and World Bank were to be made only on the condition that those states accepting them would manage their economic affairs according to neo-liberal principles.
The central strategy dictated by structural adjustment was the notion of comparative advantage, whereby states would maximise their economic potential by focusing upon the export of one or two specialist commodities such as copper or cocoa that they had a history of producing.
In this way, it was argued, African states could gain greater access to world markets. Such a strategy needed to be supported by the reduction of state interference in industry, privatisation programmes, the removal of barriers to international trade, and the deregulation of the labour market.
The Berg Report assumed that Africa's failure to modernise itself could overwhelmingly be attributed to political mismanagement. Therefore, the only solution open to them was to roll back the frontiers of the state, thereby freeing the much more effective mechanisms of market forces. Underdeveloped states could only succeed if they reformed their systems in line with the needs of the global economy.
The high level of indebtedness of African states ensured that many did, albeit often reluctantly, pursue structural adjustment. Since the early 1980s, around thirty African states have embarked on all or some of the neo-liberal reforms set out by the IMF and World Bank (Watkins, 1995: 74).
For example, in Nigeria between 1991 and 1993 some thirty- five public enterprises were privatized (Moser et al., 1997: 43), in Kenya unions were subject to government restrictions under pressure from the World Bank, and in Ghana there occurred an extensive liberalisation of trade mechanisms (Brown, 1995: 76). Those organisations promoting neo-liberal policies in Africa were convinced of their success and, in line with the neo-liberal orthodoxy of writers like Hayek, claimed not only economic benefits but also an increase in individual freedom and opportunity for the citizens of Africa's states.
The IMF asserted that in countries like Ghana which 'effectively implemented comprehensive adjustment and reform programs', such policies have decreased poverty as well as leading to increased income levels, the modernisation of economic structures, and an increased share of world trade (Hadjimichael et al., 1996: 44; Dixon et al., 1995: 6). The World Bank concurs with this positive assessment of neo-liberal policies in Africa. A report by the Bank in 1994 concluded that the more countries have embraced structural adjustment, the greater have been the economic and social benefits (World Bank, 1994).
However, many aid organisations and academics have been critical of structural adjustment policies. They have questioned the true extent of the economic gains claimed by neo-liberals, and have pointed to the huge social costs associated with such policies. The IMF and World Bank's claim, that if implemented correctly, structural adjustment results in economic growth, has been questioned by Schatz.
In an alternative statistical analysis of the World Bank's 1994 report, he concludes that the data presented 'fail[s] to support this claim and even bolster the contrary thesis' (Schatz, 1994: 679). Watkins contends that any benefits created by adjustment in some areas of the economy are normally more than offset by decline in other sectors.
Zimbabwe, for example, did experience average annual growth rates of 2.7 per cent in the 1980s, but this was accompanied by 'deteriorating living standards', brought on by increased population growth and an 'increasingly untenable budget deficit' (Watkins, 1995: 76).
One weakness of neo-liberalism is its obsession with narrow economic criteria as a measure of a state's success, without taking into consideration the wider social impact of reform. As Logan and Mengisteab (1993) contend, it must be remembered that even in countries such as Ghana, which has had some success in attracting overseas investment and increasing its trade, such developments should not be seen as ends in themselves but rather should be aimed at the general well being of the country as a whole.
They argue that the policies of neo-liberalism have the effect of excluding 70 or 80 per cent of the population and are socially divisive. Contrary to the IMF assessment of Ghana as a flagship example of the benefits of neo-liberalism, Haynes (1996:88) argues that the results of adjustment in Ghana have amounted to 'social failure'.
Despite extensive adjustment policies, ordinary workers found that in 1993 the minimum day's wage of 46 cedis was equal to $0.33 and could purchase only a single bottle of beer! Even the IMF's positive assessment of Ghana's performance conceded that 1996 rates of economic growth would mean that those in absolute poverty would require from thirty to forty years to move out of poverty (Hadjimichael et al., 1996: 44-5).
Moreover, even this prediction seems optimistic if one considers that the mild alleviation of poverty claimed by the IMF is more likely to be attributable to the increase in state spending on health and social services in the late 1980s, after they had been slashed in the early years of structural adjustment, rather than the result of the 'trickle down of economic wealth' suggested by neo-liberals (Hadjimichael et al., 1996: 45).
The policy of concentrating upon export-led growth has also been heavily criticised. Such concentration has been extensive in many African states; for example in the 1980s copper accounted for 83 per cent of Zambia's exports while cocoa made up 63 per cent of Ghana's total export earnings (McMichael, 1996: 129).
As Brown (1995: 5) argues, the result of such a policy has been 'gross over-production and growing stocks of commodities, which has led to sharply falling world prices of primary commodity exports and thus to a collapse in the earnings of African countries'.
The policy of devaluation of currency that often accompanied this export-led approach also meant that any benefits of this strategy were offset by the lowering of earning capacity of workers in real terms and the increase in the cost of imports (Logan and Mengisteab, 1993). Structural adjustment policies have also had an adverse effect on social cohesion in many states. One of the problems here is the neo- liberal assumption that the answer to Africa's problems is to ape the industrial world in order to emulate its economic success (Brown, 1995).
This has often meant adjustment policies have been insensitive to the traditional indigenous cultures of African states and have exacerbated social tensions. Even a state like Tanzania, with 'a long history of ethnic, racial, and religious cohesion', has 'begun to fray as the Government attempts to reform its ailing economy' (Kaiser, 1996: 227). In Tanzania, racial tension has emerged largely as a result of the 'benefits' of reform disproportionately accruing to the minority Asian community.
As Watkins (1995: 78-9) argues, the failure of market regulation to provide 'a framework for poverty reduction' coupled with the fact that social welfare programmes have 'not been adequately protected', has meant that the gap between rich and poor has grown under neo-liberal policies. Kaiser (1996) concludes that, in states with a greater history of unrest than Tanzania, adjustment policies are likely to result in even greater social conflicts.
Ironically, although market reforms have significantly undermined the strength of the state to govern effectively, the World Bank and the IMF have often blamed the lack of success of neo-liberal policies on 'poor governance'. For example, in assessing Nigeria's abandonment of structural adjustment in 1994, the IMF blames the inability of the government to win popular support for economic reform (Moser et al., 1997).
Neo-liberals such as Hayek have emphasised the superiority of market forces over state planning, but political and economic factors cannot be so easily detached. As Mackintosh (cited in Kiely, 1995:129) suggests, 'there is no such thing as a free market: all markets are structured by state action'.
This brings us to the key problem of neo- liberalism in practice. Individuals and states engage in market activity, not as autonomous and unconstrained actors, but act in the context of social and economic structures. For individuals, their ability to compete in the market is shaped by such factors as their 'race', gender and class position.
Similarly, countries exist within the context of a states system that privileges some countries over others. In the case of African states, their ability to compete in world markets is greatly restricted by such structural factors, as well Africa's own historical, political and economic circumstances.
In ignoring such conditioning factors, neo-liberalism displays a profound lack of understanding of the nature of power. It was highly unlikely that Africa's long-standing problems in constructing effective mechanisms of governance could be solved by importing a highly abstract economic theory which was blind to the multiple sources of Africa's problems.
Any solution to the continent's problems has to begin therefore by acknowledging this fact and dealing with the many factors that hold back Africa's development such as a lack of access to technology, poor internal infrastructure, political instability and the related difficulties of attracting foreign investment (United Nations, 1996b: 27-32).
However, one of the paradoxes of the West's promotion of structural adjustment has been its insistence that states in Africa have all too often been self-serving and inefficient, and have therefore been impediments to capitalism, while at the same time displaying geo-political expediency in supporting some of the most corrupt African governments.
A classic example of this can be found in the former state of Zaire, renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997. As Brown (1995: 111) argues, the 'hideous regime' of Zaire's dictator Mobuto Sese Seko was sustained by the USA as a convenient base for the Angolan rebels the USA supported in their struggle against the Marxist government of Angola.
The result of this was that the corrupt Mobuto plundered his country's extensive natural resources for personal gain. Mobuto, who once claimed that '1 owe Zaire nothing. It's Zaire that owes me everything', came to power in 1965 promising to live on his soldier's income, but was thrown out of power by the rebel leader Kabila in 1997 having plundered an estimated $4 billion for himself from his often starving people (Observer, 1997).
Such examples illustrate the naivete of neo-liberalism in ignoring the constraints that external and internal political factors have played in maintaining Africa in a state of underdevelopment. As the IMF has itself recognised, even in countries with some evidence of benefiting from neo-liberal reform, a key question has been the ability of unstable states to attract sufficient private investment (Moser et al., 1997).
Such organisations as the IMF have failed, however, to understand the way in which economic disadvantage and political crises in many African states have reinforced each other, thereby making it unlikely that investors can have sufficient confidence to make a long-term financial commitment.
Moreover, recent examples of political instability, corruption and civil war have occurred, not as a result of Africa's inherent 'primitive culture' as has often been implied by the West, but largely as a consequence of the contradictions in Western policy to Africa. As Brown (1995: 6) writes, 'the outbreaks of civil violence and internecine wars in Africa seemed to be more the result of the impasse of accumulating debt and the destruction of old forms of community action than of any irreconcilable differences between ethnic groups'.
The combination of extreme indebtedness, political interference from the developed world and inappropriate Western-inspired economic reforms, have all hindered Africa's ability to compete in the world market and to maintain the living standards of its people, thereby increasing social unrest and creating a vicious circle of structural exclusion.
As the World Development Movement has argued (1993), it is not just Africa's geo-political position that prevents its development it is also its relationship to the world trade system, which operates in a manner that is far from 'free'. The structure of world trade constructed during Africa's colonial period is partly still in place; for example in 1993 over half Africa's trade was with the countries of the European 82 Challenges to the State
Union while only 7 per cent was between African states themselves. Africa is therefore dependent on its trade links with Europe that are structured in ways that disadvantage African states. One of the problems with Africa's reliance upon primary commodities has been that the continent has little control over the price of these commodities.
Satellite technology means that the West often has greater knowledge of the extent of mineral reserves and the performance of cash crops in Africa than do the Africans themselves. This aids the West in fixing price levels to its advantage (Spybey, 1996: 84).
In addition, in 1993 many trade tariffs still existed on goods manufactured in Africa and this helped to prevent a shift away from a dependence upon primary commodities (World Development Movement, 1993). The myth of the free market is not the only untruth that has driven neo-liberal policy .in Africa. The ideological emphasis the IMF and World Bank have placed on the benefits of the market has led them to claim falsely that in South-East Asia, economic success during the early 1990s could be attributed to market forces alone (rather than being led by the state), and that this should be the model broadly followed in Africa.
As Dixon and his colleagues have argued:
The international agencies have indulged in a considerable measure of 'double think' with respect to the role of the state in the development of the Pacific Asian economies . . . attributing the economic problems they experienced during the early 1980s to state involvement in the market, and their subsequent rapid economic recovery to successful liberalisation. (Dixon et al., 1995: 3).
When such organisations as the World Bank argue that the state should play an indirect and limited 'enabling' role in support of economic development they ignore the fact that in South-East Asia the state has often played a much more direct developmental role in economic growth (Ramesh, 1995).
Many writers have claimed that such a developmental role for the state may be much more appropriate for many African economies. Such a judgment rejects the highly abstract neo- liberal view of state intervention as being wrong in all places and at all times, and instead asserts a 'balanced pragmatism' where policy should be led by 'an even handed weighing of probable costs and benefits of government involvement on the one hand, and reliance on the market on the other' (Schatz, 1994: 692).
As Kiely (1995: 132) argues, such a practical perspective 'does not deny that many states in the developing world are inefficient, but this must be demonstrated rather than theorised on an a priori basis devoid of any historical or social content'. This lack of empirical rigour lies at the heart of neo-liberalism and goes a long way to explaining its lack of success when applied to practical economic and political problems in both the developing and developed world.


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What the hell is AOL doing?
More to the point, what is Arianna Huffington doing, selling Huffington Post to AOL for $315m?
AOL's grubby hands have long been groping the bright stars of the web, hoping a little of that stardust might rub off. Buying Huffington Post – the most impressive, most editorially distinctive independent name on the web – is a high-profile ego buy for AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong. Under his attempt to reinvent AOL as "the most influential company in the content space", he's just committed $300m in cash and $15m in stock to the deal.
Armstrong is targeting wealthy women. "The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus," he told staff in an internal memo yesterday. "80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers." And Huffington Post has stuff women read and is published by – a woman! Congratulations.
Fifty-eight pages of a strategy presentation leaked last week confirm it all. It could have been a strategy created five years ago: stories determined by traffic potential, bloggers with quotas of up to 10 stories per day, and daily story numbers to increase from 33,000 to 55,000. Someone needs to tell Armstrong that the future of online journalism demands more than a high-end content farm.
Armstrong is looking at the numbers: AOL and HuffPo combined will have 117 million unique monthly users in the US; a core of regular HuffPo users earn more then $100,000; and the deal values the site at five times its estimated $65m revenues for this year. Some seem to think this could be money well spent: TechCrunch's "resident insider-pissing insider" Paul Carr can't help but describe this as "a brilliant strategic acquisition at a logical price".
However, I defer to the artful David Whitley, who tweeted: "AOL reminds me of someone going into a supermarket whilst drunk, emerging with 60 packets of biscuits and a bag of peat."
Perhaps HuffPo, much like TechCrunch, as they matured also slowed down a little as the ambitions of the two founders, Arianna Huffington and Mike Arrington respectively – were realised in successful, influential blogs. But it is not the inevitable fate of every successful independent to sell out.
It is possible that with Arianna Huffington heading AOL's editorial as Huffington Post Media Group president and editor-in-chief will remedy that lack of editorial personality. Good luck to her managing TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington and his notoriously boorish attitude, even to his new paymasters. We'd like to see how long their tie-ins last.
But there's something soullessly commercial about this proposition. Those numbers might add up, but what is AOL's editorial focus? Buying big names isn't enough without an idea of what that means, and what you stand for. Maybe the kudos of AOL rubbed off somewhere along that transatlantic undersea cable, but it is a name synonymous with ill-judged, overpaid and desperate acquisitions that turn out to be the kiss of death for the victim. I know we've moved on from the vampiric demise of Bebo, but the skeleton of that Time-Warner deal is still rattling in the closet.


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I was paddling on the Chattahoochee River near Roswell on Saturday, August 29, 2009. A river otter swam in front of me and then paddled beside me to take a closer look. I guess he's never seen a stand up paddle board in his river. I am still looking for a beaver, but as my 5-year old keeps telling me, "They're nocturnal." (Photo Courtesy: Dmitry Azovtsev; License: )
River Otter Sighting
August 31, 2009


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This weekend I watched the remake of 'The Day the Earth stood still.' Terrible. I was with it all the way until the end when Keanu decided that humans were worth saving. What a load of crap! When will they make a disaster movie that caters to the segment of the population that wants to see humanity get wiped out! Huh?! I'm not saying I'm eagerly anticipating the day the human race goes extinct, I'm just saying that from the earth's perspective, we're like a houseguest that has over stayed our welcome – all six billion of us. Think of it this way: Everything on this planet exists in perfect balance with everything else – except for us. The entire system is self-regulating – the ultimate proof of the feasibility of free markets – but then homo sapien comes along and throws the proverbial monkey wrench (pun intended) into the system and messes up the whole thing. My theory as to why we keep making things worse is because at some point a little strand of dna mutated that left us with the desire not only to exist, but the desire to improve our existence. And therein lies the problem (at least from the earth's perspective). Everything else on this planet simply wants to exist – to quote Homer, 'all you do is sleep and eat and mate and sleep…where do I sign up?' We, on the other hand, don't seem content with that existence, and therefore we spend our days seeking ways to improve our existence, but unfortunately for the earth, since everything that happens on this planet is a zero-sum gain, the improvement of one comes at the expense of another. I take great comfort in the idea that at some point humanity will go extinct, and the earth will forget all about us, and everything will go back to its perfectly self-regulating existence. I take great comfort not because I like the idea of an impending apocalypse, I just like the idea that in the end, anything we do just isn't that big a deal, and that eventually the earth will heal itself and start anew. I just wish I could be around to see it – but since that would defeat the whole point, I'll continue to wait for the movie.
Archive for the 'movies' Category
Disaster moviesApril 27, 2009
Michael Bay MoviesApril 21, 2009
I just watched the trailer to Transformers 2. At first I wasn't sure if I was watching a clip from 'Armageddon' since the opening scene IS IDENTICAL!!!! Is Michael Bay just phoning it in?! Do all his movies have to start with giant fiery balls of goo destroying well known landmarks!? And for that matter, what are the odds that the Eiffel Tower would always be the first thing on this earth to get blown up by giant hunks of burning space crap flying through our atmosphere?! I mean, come on! The Eiffel Tower isn't that big! Not only that, but it isn't even solid – you would think at least one of these fiery balls would fly through the tower without hitting anything right?! Were the French mean to Michael Bay when he was backpacking around Europe after film school? Is that why? Ugh. Anyways.
Watching Michael Bay's movies is like being involved in a self-destructive relationship: You go to the movie, hate it, swear you'll never watch another one again, then some time goes by and the DVD gets released, and you say to yourself, 'Oh, it wasn't that bad, maybe we can still be friends.' So now you own a copy of a crappy movie that you didn't like, and some more time goes by, and before you know it the sequel comes out, and you think back to all the good times you had, and you think, maybe we can make it work this time, so you go to see the movie, and within the first five minutes you remember exactly why you broke up in the first place, but too late, you've already bought your ticket so you might as well stay for the whole thing. And on and on and on…until one day you wake up, look at your DVD collection and realize that Armageddon and Transformers are still in the plastic wrapper…2 years later! And that's when you realize it's time to break up for good…but the box is so shiny…and you love seeing things get blown up…oh, maybe I'll just skip to the good scenes, maybe it'll work this time…hey, is that a dinobot in the new Transformers movie…I love dinobots! Oh, Michael, I can never be mad at you!


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I joined a monthly make challenge over at thefeltfairy it's to help me make something each month and so far it's working. Check out her blog and join us in the challenge.
I guess you could say I've been busy. This is just some of the stuff I've done I haven't gotten pics of the other stuff. I did these Christmas ornament for a swap I think they came out cute I hope my partner likes them.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A Monthly Make ~2011~Jan.~
I joined a monthly make challenge over at thefeltfairy it's to help me make something each month and so far it's working. Check out her blog and join us in the challenge.
Posted by Holly Days Closet at 1/18/2011 04:10:00 PM 11 comments
Labels: monthly challenge
Here is our mail box from our house, Yes it's nice and close but that doesn't mean anything when you can't get into it right now I have a package that is being held hostage. Here is a close up in one of those bigger ones is where my package is. They (the post office) give you a key to open it, the bad thing is I spent 30 min trying to open it and nothing it just won't turn. Last time this happen I cut my finger trying to open this dumb box and still didn't get it open. I really HATE these things.I remember when they first started putting these things into communities they said it was a good thing to help build a sense of community cause everyone will be getting their the same place. That's a laugh I have lived here for almost 3 years and still don't know my neighbors.
They build these stupid things cause they became lazy. I remember when the mailman would park his truck and walk house to house to deliver the mail. I knew who my mailman was I knew his name and that he liked chocolate chip cookie which I would try to make for him once in awhile. I so want to have a mail box at my house.
Oh well hopefully tomorrow my package will be released from being a hostage let's hope it doesn't have Stockholm syndrome the post office doesn't need any sympathy.
Until Later
Posted by Holly Days Closet at 1/18/2011 02:56:00 PM 2 comments
Labels: mail, package, post office
Friday, January 7, 2011
Bar-B-Q High
We had ribs and potatoes salad last night K is not a big fan of beef so we were just giving her salad but she insisted on having ribs so we gave her some bones and you know what she cleaned them almost as good as Max did. These pics are to cute not to share I just love this girl.
Until Later
Posted by Holly Days Closet at 1/07/2011 06:58:00 AM 8 comments
Thursday, January 6, 2011
And I'm Off
This year has started out better than most. I feel better more motivated than I have in years it's amazing what an air filter and melatonin will do for you. I'm even more determined to get over my fear of power tools. There are so many things I want to make from Ana-White and other bloggers that I've seen. Here is a look at some things I've done I put together 13 toys some will be drooped for the Toy Society don't you just wish you lived close to me so you could find one of these cuties, I'll be using some for a swap or two as well. I'm so excited about what this new year may bring, and all the things I'll be making.
Until Later
Posted by Holly Days Closet at 1/06/2011 11:16:00 AM 5 comments


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Signs your site needs an upgrade.
You Aren't Getting Results
Is your website converting visitors to customers? A website should grab the visitor's attention, engage them, and then call them to action. Does your site accomplish these things?
Your Info is Dated
You've rebranded or your company's product/service/mission/philosophy has changed. Remember that your website is an extension of your brand. A website is similar to a logo in that visitors will make assumptions about your organization at first glance.
It's Not Responsive
A responsive website adapts to different sized screens and devices to present each visitor with a pleasant experience. Can your website be viewed on a range of devices, from desktop computers down to cell phones? If not, then you're missing out on the 50% of Internet users who access the web by means other than a computer.
It's Hard To Use
Visitors won't stick around if they're unable to find what they're looking for. Proper usability is imperative. Usability improvements, on average, doubles web sales. [SOURCE: Jakob Nielsen, ROI study]
It's Ugly
Or looks dated. A study conducted by Elizabeth Sillence titled "Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites" asked a group of people to find websites related to hypertension. The group was then asked to record whether they trusted or distrusted the websites they found, and why.
And guess what? When Sillence reviewed the reasons why people distrusted a website, 94% cited design problems.
What other web faux pas can you add to the list?
Interested in hiring me to design your website?


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2Baba, Omawumi, Sunmbo Adeoye & More join Annie Idibia as she wraps up her Empowerment Birthday Reachout
Annie Idibia's empowerment birthday reach out wrapped up yesterday as part of her Annie Idibia Care Foundation's mission to empower young women.
The final event was attended by Vimbai Mutinhiri, Omawumi, Sound Sultan, Joe El, Ubi Franklin, Sunmbo Adeoye and more. Annie was also supported by her husband, 2Baba and their two daughters as well as her mum.
See the photos below.


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Radiant heating is an energy-efficient system that emits heat to warm homes, businesses, warehouses, and garages. REHAU's system efficiently circulates the warm water through a network of cross-linked polyethylene pipes placed in the floor. This system is highly energy-efficient and can work with a wide variety of heat sources and floor coverings.
- Unlike traditional heating systems that just simply heat the air, radiant heating emits heat constantly and evenly.
- Versatile, quiet, clean, and economical, can be easily installed in new homes, or renovations.
- Room temperatures can be controlled with multiple thermostats.
- Warm, even heating allows for a lower thermostat setting for maximum home comfort.
- Versatile installation options
- No noisy fans or dry blown air
- Provides a comfortable environment with accurate and stable temperature control
- Economical, minimizing operating costs by up to 30%
- Wet installations are common in new homes, dry installations are undertaken when a poured floor isn't practical
- Quiet and clean – no noisy fans or dry blown air to distribute dust, allergens throughout your home
Radiant heating is versatile and can act as the primary heat source or support other auxiliary heating systems. Applications include schools, barns, auditoriums, warehouses, in addition to residential use.


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It tells us a slightly different story. And speaks to the real power of an Auditor. When they're actually doing their job and not being totally absent from their job while they campaign for political office.
From the Tribune:
A state audit released today criticizes the spending and management practices of a $55 million, taxpayer-funded anti-violence program for Chicago and Cook County that Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn launched in 2010 as he was engaged in a tough election campaign.
The report by Auditor General William Holland said the program was "hastily implemented," failed to target some of the highest crime neighborhoods in Chicago and relied on recommendations from Chicago aldermen and community organizers rather than a more objective process to select which community organizations should get funding.Shame not all Auditors can be as effective, right?
Seems that we've covered DuPage County Auditor Bob Grogan and his poor performance before. You can see the story here about how not only did Grogan blow his budget up (hello Big Government!) he also conducted just three tiny audits in one year (while the guy in Will County did 57. Yes! 3 vs. 57 during the same timeframe!).
We intercepted a note that Bill Holland - the Auditor General - sent to Bob Grogan. We have to agree with Mr. Holland. And at the same time, feel bad for taxpayers in DuPage County.


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Gloria Stein and Ted Fraumann (United States)
We returned home from Argentina yesterday. One of the highlights of our
vacation was our trip down to the Peninsula Valdes and Punto Tombo. We very
much enjoyed our guide Mary. We found her English perfect, her knowledge of
the area extraordinary and her attentiveness to our needs very thorough.
The transfers to and from the airport all worked out well. The van that
transported us on the two tours was also very nice and comfortable.
The hotel Dazzler was fine, the room large and clean. Breakfast was
enjoyable. The location was perfect.
We loved walking with the penguins at Punto Tombo and enjoyed seeing the
elephant seals and sea lion too, as well as the other wildlife roaming
around the Peninsula. We were especially impressed with our driver Carlos's
ability to spot the smallest of creatures for us to marvel at, including a
tarantula in the middle of the road.
One really nice touch was checking us in for our flight and delivering our
boarding passes to the hotel. It was greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Gloria Stein and Ted Fraumann
Gloria Stein and Ted Fraumann
Fecha 21/03/2017


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Single Sign-on (SSO) Integration with LuxSciSaturday, April 18th, 2015
Do you have a web site or App that you control where users of that site/App are also users of LuxSci? LuxSci's single sign-on service enables your site or app to send these users to any page of their LuxSci interface without their to separately login to LuxSci.
Single sign-on integrates your site or app with LuxSci so that users need only login once (to your site or app) and then can seamlessly travel between them. This is great for speed and usability. It is also good for users to not need to remember more passwords.
How does LuxSci Single Sign-On Work?
SSO works through LuxSci's API.
Read the rest of this post »


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This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. By using our site you accept the terms of our Privacy and Cookie Policy
Welcome from Group CEO David Marock"At Charles Taylor, we provide professional services to make the business of insurance work efficiently."
Core Values Our approach to business is underpinned by our core values.
Charles Taylor is a leading international provider of professional services to clients in the global insurance market."
We have around 2,900 staff in 100 locations spread across 30 countries in the UK, the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East."
Welcome to Charles Taylor Insurance ServicesCharles Taylor Insurance Services Limited is an independent provider of outsourced managed claims services, broking and underwriting services, financial accounting services, and MGA services to the Lloyd's, London and global insurance markets.
Welcome to Life Insurance Services We provide a complete range of outsourced insurance management services to international life insurance companies. Our services enable our clients to operate and manage their businesses more effectively as well as reducing their costs.
We have a genuine pride in delivering high quality work. We live by our reputation in professional services and it is this focus on quality which underpins our offering to clients."
Welcome to Charles Taylor Adjusting Charles Taylor Adjusting is an international loss adjusting business. We focus on commercial losses and claims in the aviation, energy, marine, property, casualty and special risks markets.
Welcome to Richards Hogg Lindley RHL is a leading global average adjuster, able to handle complex hull and machinery cases, shipyard losses, loss of hire claims and the largest general average losses.
Our services are usually highly technical and specialist in nature. We differentiate ourselves through the quality of our people, their professional expertise, and their commitment to service excellence."
Welcome to Charles Taylor Management Services Charles Taylor provides end-to-end management of insurance companies. We deliver a complete outsourced management service covering every aspect of the companies' operations.
Mutual Management We manage four mutual insurance companies: The Standard Club, The Strike Club, Signal Mutual and SCALA.
Charles Taylor has a partnership mind-set. We work closely with our clients to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes."
Surveyor - Aviation, Charles Taylor Adjusting
The Minster Building
21 Mincing Lane
United Kingdom
• Qualified Licensed Aircraft Engineer and with over 17 years' industry experience
• Detailed understanding of aircraft systems.
• Working knowledge of multiple rotary and fixed wing aircraft types.
• Auditing experience in a diverse variety of maintenance and continuing airworthiness environments.
• Detailed understanding of EASA Part M Subpart G and aircraft records keeping requirements.
• Aircraft structural inspections and repair of large commercial passenger aircraft such as the Airbus A380, A340, A320 and Boeing B787, B747 & B757.
• Production inspections of a variety of engine types.
© 2020 Charles Taylor plc Registered Office: The Minster Building, 21 Mincing Lane, London EC3R 7AG. Registered in England No.03194476


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Command Prompt for WoW Lua and API. See the forum thread.
The main window :
In the Editbox you can type whatever you want, orbCmd will read it as a Lua code.
You can type !<command> for the console commands (reloadui, characterAmbient ...).
You have some 'standalone' functions :
*close | exit : closes the main window
*reloadui : /console reloadui
*name : displays the name of the frame your mous is over
*logout : /logout
*quit : /run Forcequit();
*cls : clears the console
You can write any new functions you want in the orbCmd.lua file and post them here if you want
Example of use :


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Some Disney News!
Confession: I have never seen Avatar. So when Disney announced a few years ago that they would be recreating the world of Pandora: World of Avatar at Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World, I was all, "meh." Now that the work is mostly completed, and they are airing TV spots, and the opening is slated for Memorial Day Weekend 2017, I'm all, "…still meh." However, a few things that might make me change my tune: Read the rest of this entry »


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Discount Pricing
At Advanced Audiology Concepts we want you to hear without compromise. Everyone deserves the best hearing you can have. If you have looked into hearing instruments and found premium devices out of your reach you could be a candidate for our unique premium hearing instrument pricing. Call 440-205-8848440-205-8848 to schedule a risk free *hearing instrument consultation to discuss your options. Our unique pricing for premium hearing solutions allows you to enjoy every moment because Life Sounds Great!
*charges for audiologic assessment may apply


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Show me an open bar and I'll usually take dark liquor or red wine. But in middle of summer and I'm sweating like swine, I'm on the hunt for something that'll cool me down. Here are some favorites in no particular order.
Whose margarita intake doesn't increase in the summer months? This recipe adds a kiss of blueberries, and it won't torpedo your beach bod like sugar-packed margarita mixes.
2. Grapefruit, Rosemary & Gin Liplicker
We weren't sure what to call this, but this fizzy, citrusy drink makes our mouth water. Plus just saying "liplicker" gets us a little randy.
Nothing says summer like peaches, raspberries, and hooch. This fruity cocktail is good enough to drink year-round, but summer's perfect for using fresh ingredients — making this baby even better.
4. The Tramp
The secret to the Tramp is sloe gin, which is made by soaking a summer stonefruit (similar to a peach or plum) in delicious, delicious booze. This is the perfect tipple to fuel your summer fling.
This is Nadia's favorite on the list. And how could it not be? Take the zing of citrus, the dark sweetness of fresh summer cherries, and the refreshing hint of mint — then add booze. You can't go wrong.
EXTRA CREDIT: The L.A. Michelada
Some of you will turn up your noses at the idea of adding tomato juice (much less Clamato) to a cheap Mexican lager. But don't knock it 'til you try it. On a hot summer evening, this our go-to drink at our favorite Los Angeles dive bar. Extra spicy, please!
What's your favorite summertime libation? Let us know in the comments or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Happy boozin'!


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A rape victim who was jailed in Texas for nearly a month because prosecutors feared she would not return to testify after having a mental breakdown on the stand has sued the Harris County district attorney's office, county officials and jail employees.
The woman, identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit, was held in the general population at the county jail — the same place where the rape suspect, Keith Hendricks, was housed. There, the suit says, she was misclassified as the perpetrator of a sexual assault — not as a victim — attacked by an inmate, denied medication and punched in the face by a guard.
Jane Doe's treatment amounted to "an absolute deprivation of her personal integrity," her lawyer, Sean Buckley, said in an interview Thursday. "As a rape victim, the psychological trauma she experienced was an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness."
"And if you take out the sexual violation itself and you look at the underlying psychological trauma," he added, "this is exactly what these defendants did to her again while she was still in recovery for her rape."
According to the suit filed Monday in United States District Court in Houston, the woman began testifying in December against the man she said had choked, beaten and raped her two years earlier. The woman has bipolar disorder, the suit says, and did not finish her testimony.
In what the district attorney later called "an extraordinarily difficult and unusual situation," because of concern she would not return to the courtroom, a judge had her locked up until the trial resumed, even though she was not charged with a crime.
A spokesman for the Harris County district attorney's office declined to comment on Thursday, though prosecutors and the Harris County sheriff's office have defended their decisions.
The decision raises questions about the treatment of people with mental health disorders in the Texas justice system and about the wisdom of jailing someone already victimized and traumatized by a suspect the district attorney called "a serial rapist."
But the move was not unheard of. In a case in Sacramento, Calif., prosecutors in 2012 demanded that a 17-year-old victim of sexual assault be held in juvenile detention to ensure that she showed up to testify at the trial of her alleged attacker. She had failed to appear at two previous hearings. But a judge decided about a month later that she could be released and monitored by a GPS device.
Advocates for sexual assault survivors said they feared that the Texas case could have a chilling effect on other victims' willingness to speak up.
The case was originally reported by KPRC-TV, a local television station.
The woman was sent to St. Joseph's Medical Center for 10 days after she broke down on the stand, the lawyer said. There was no follow-up after she was released from the hospital, and she was handcuffed, arrested and sent to jail on Dec. 18, Mr. Buckley said.
During that time, the woman was taken to the courtroom to testify against Mr. Hendricks. He was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences without parole. A judge allowed her to go home on Jan. 14 — 27 days after she was jailed.
In a video statement that has been uploaded to YouTube, Devon Anderson, the county district attorney, said the rape victim had suffered through a life-threatening mental health crisis and had expressed her intention during the trial not to testify again.
"If nothing was done to prevent the victim from leaving Harris County in the middle of trial, a serial rapist would have gone free, and her life would have been at risk while homeless on the street," Ms. Anderson says in the video.
"This was an extraordinarily difficult and unusual situation. There were no apparent alternatives that would ensure both the victim's safety and her appearance at trial."
Mr. Buckley, the woman's lawyer, acknowledged that the woman had said she might not testify again. But he said that was "while she was having a mental breakdown." He said county officials did not have the legal right to detain her since she lived outside Harris County — in an apartment in Longview, Tex. — and had not been subpoenaed.
Instead of putting the woman in jail, officials should have arranged with a community organization or provided a hotel room with a sheriff's deputy as a chaperone, Mr. Buckley said.
"Had they done that, she would have testified, she would have testified well, and she would not have been abused in the jail," he said.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office said the woman was taken to jail after a district judge issued a bench warrant, ordering the sheriff's office to detain her as a material witness.
"The sheriff's office had no authority but to follow the court's order to detain Jane Doe," Ryan Sullivan, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said in a statement.
Mr. Sullivan said the woman would have been placed in a separate cell had the court ordered that she be kept separate from the general population, but no such order was issued.
The lawsuit says that when the woman was processed, she was accidentally classified as having committed a sexual crime, leading to negative treatment from the jail's medical staff members who didn't believe her protests.
She was in at least two physical confrontations while in jail. On Dec. 23, an inmate pushed her to the ground and repeatedly slammed her head into the concrete floor, according to the lawsuit. On Jan. 8, she suffered "an acute psychiatric episode," the lawsuit says.
The prison guards' response caused her to have a panic attack, during which "she became hysterical and physically uncontrollable," the suit said. At one point, a guard punched her, causing a bruised eye socket, the lawsuit said.
She was also charged with felony aggravated assault but that charge was later dropped.
The Harris County Jail, one of the nation's largest, has become known for allegations of deaths, beatings, civil rights abuses, unjust prosecutions and medical neglect, according to a six-part series in The Houston Chronicle.
Jane Doe's lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages, names the Harris County sheriff, Ron Hickman; Taylor Adams, the prison guard; Nicholas Socias, an assistant district attorney; Harris County; and unnamed employees of the jail and the district attorney's office.
In a statement, Rebecca White, the chief executive of the Houston-area Women's Center, said, "We appreciate the importance of doing all we can to hold perpetrators accountable, but also believe that respecting the dignity of survivors and providing full support are paramount."
Ms. White added that the group was "concerned that sexual assault is already underreported and that this may further deter survivors from coming forward."