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THICK AS THIEVES: The Clinton and Epstein Association Timeline/1993-2013
By Paul Serran
In the years when Jeffrey Epstein held court like a Jay Gatsby from hell, many wealthy and celebrated people from all areas of society were drawn into the vortex, so to speak, of the International Moneyman of Mystery.
Vanity Fair, in 2003, reported: "Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women—lots of them, mostly young."
But it is not impossible that many good, honest people may have been present at functions and events, unaware of the inner workings of the trafficking and blackmail machine that Epstein allegedly operated with his best friend and partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.
He needed them, the innocent bystanders, to transition from a glorified high-school math teacher to the seemingly legendary financial wizard and sponsor of philanthropy that he wanted to become.
That's the reason why the infamous "black book" is not just a list of accomplices, victims and marks. It also had contacts for people who were in their lives to render some sort of veneer of sophistication and power.
But one thing is clear: the minute your relationship with them turned recreational, and you decided to avail yourself of the criminal opportunities that their friendship could provide, Epstein and Maxwell would be filming you to get kompromat.
"Friends don't tape friends," Prince Andrew's cousin Christina Oxenberg made a point to remind us. But Epstein and Maxwell did tape, including her Royal cousin.
That is why the close relationship between former US president Bill Clinton and the King of Pedophiles is so disturbing for all but the most dedicated DNC shills.
+++ THE ILLUSTRATED EPSTEIN/CLINTON TIMELINE +++
A dispassionate look at the documentation made available so far shows that their relationship was not a mere occasional brushing of the shoulder in public events over the years. They rather appear to be thick as thieves for some period of their lives.
>>> Late 80's: In a 'Ponzi Scheme' with Steven Hoffenberg
At Bear Stearns, the investment banking firm that hired Epstein away from his job teaching math, people either thought his departure had to do with "an illicit affair with a secretary," or a question of an improper loan.
But several of Epstein's contemporaries recall distinctly that Epstein left the company very suddenly.
His next boss, fraudster Steven Hoffenberg, said he was introduced to Epstein by Douglas Leese, a British arms dealer. What a lovely crowd.
One of Epstein's first assignments for Hoffenberg was to mastermind the doomed bids to take over Pan American World Airways in 1987 and Emery Air Freight Corp. in 1988.
"I advanced money to Epstein perpetually because I thought this thing could work," Hoffenberg said. "He could sell anything. People loved him."
Hoffenberg, who spent 18 years in prison for the Towers' Financial scandal, said that Epstein was "the architect of the scam."
"I thought Jeffrey was the best hustler on two feet," Hoffenberg said. "Talent, charisma, genius, criminal mastermind. We had a thing that could make a lot of money. We called it Ponzi."
"I call it a turnover," Hoffenberg said. "You raise a dollar here, you pay a dollar there. Epstein was brilliant at this."
>>> Late 80's: Epstein and Victoria's Secret's Les Wexler.
Epstein became increasingly involved with Fashion Mogul Leslie Wexner, whom he had met through insurance executive Robert Meister and his late wife. Epstein began working for Wexner in 1989, and there was an immediate and strong personal connection between them.
Wexner said he thought Epstein was "very smart with a combination of excellent judgment and unusually high standards. Also, he is always a most loyal friend."
>>> 1991: Robert Maxwell dies. Ghislaine Maxwell goes to America.
In November, 1991, British media tycoon Robert Maxwell was discovered missing from his yacht, and later found floating in the sea near the Canary Islands.
The death was ruled to be an accidental drowning, but his younger daughter Ghislaine has since stated her father was murdered: "He did not commit suicide. That was just not consistent with his character. I think he was murdered."
Ghislaine Maxwell was hunted by the tabloids. "There's a story that the Maxwell name was so detested in London that she had to walk around in a blond wig so people wouldn't recognize her."
"I'm surviving—just," she went on. "But I can't just die quietly in a corner. I have to believe that something good will come out of this mess. It's sad for my mother. It's sad to have lost my dad. It's sad for my brothers. But I would say we'll be back. Watch this space."
Maxwell moved to the United States just after her father's death. Her photograph boarding a Concorde to cross the Atlantic caused outrage – her father had just defrauded pensioners out of Hundreds of Millions of Sterling Pounds.
And yet, she lived the high life. She was known in New York for her lavish entertaining. Had a "reputation for being charming and funny, and a glittering lifestyle straight out of the pages of a society magazine".
Maxwell had started a romantic relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and remained closely associated with him for decades afterwards.
Spawning from this undeniable association, are the persistent and horrendous allegations of procuring and sexually trafficking underage girls for Epstein and others.
>>> 1991: Legal Problems ensue for Hoffenberg.
Eventually, in 1991, insurance regulators in Illinois sued Hoffenberg. He settled the case, and Epstein, who was only a paid consultant, was never deposed or accused of any wrongdoing.
Barry Gross, the attorney who was handling the suit for the regulators, says of Epstein: "He was very elusive…. It was hard to really track him down. He was this character we never got a handle on. Again, we presumed that he was involved with the Pan Am and Emery run that Hoffenberg made, but we never got a chance to depose him."
>>> 1991: Epstein gets power of attorney for Les Wexner.
In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein full power of attorney over his affairs. The power of attorney allowed Epstein to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner's behalf.
"He is winning," Wexner says of his protégée. "Whether in conversations or negotiations, he always stands back and lets the other person determine the style and manner of the conversation or negotiation. And then he responds in their style."
"Jeffrey sees it in chivalrous terms. He does not pick a fight, but if there is a fight, he will let you choose your weapon."
>>> 1992: Bill Clinton is elected. The Whitewater scandal explodes.
The financial contributions by Bill and Hillary Clinton into a real estate entity known as Whitewater Development Corporation during his time as an Arkansas state official turned into a big scandal that clouded Bill's first year as president.
>>> 1993: Between the Travelgate Scandal and Vince Foster's death.
In May 1993, seven workers in the White House travel office were fired. Critics revealed the Clintons got rid of government workers to make room for cronies. The FBI was tapped to investigate.
Also, White House lawyer Vince Foster was found dead in a Virginia park in 1993. Republican lawmakers and conservatives suggested foul play in the death, perhaps tied to swirling ethics investigations of the Clintons that Foster had handled.
>>> 1993: Prosecutors go after Hoffenberg. Epstein named co-conspirator.
By 1993, prosecutors in Illinois and New York had spent years investigating Hoffenberg's companies, and were ready to indict him.
Hoffenberg claimed, in a 1993 hearing before a grand jury in Illinois, that he and Epstein came up with a scheme to steal $53 million of insurance companies' bonds, to try to make a bid for Pan Am. They financed these bids through Towers Financial's acquisition of two ailing Illinois insurance companies, Associated Life and United Fire.
Epstein was the 'technical wizard' who kept the money moving around to support Hoffenberg's various schemes.
Over and over, prosecutor Kohler asked Hoffenberg whether Epstein had designed Towers' scams. Hoffenberg confirmed the story at every turn.
"Jeffrey Epstein was the person in charge of the transactions," Hoffenberg said.
"Epstein was trying to manipulate the price of the stock?" Kohler asked.
"Yes," Hoffenberg replied.
"You didn't object to that, sir?"
"No," Hoffenberg said.
All federal prosecutors agreed Epstein was involved.
Yet, he was never charged. His name, initially included in prosecutors' descriptions of the scheme, quickly vanished from the record.
Why? Maybe because of the next item in our timeline.
>> 1993: Epstein and Maxwell attend White House dinner. Epstein makes 10k donation to White House Foundation.
A few weeks before Epstein was cleared on Hoffenberg's scam, our trail of crumbs starts for real. It is September 28th, 1993, when Epstein and Maxwell are documented to be attending a White House donor party with the Clintons.
A few days later, on October 4th, there is documentation of Epstein making a 10k donation to the White House Foundation.
>>> 1994: Epstein cleared from investigations around Hoffenberg.
Coincidence or not, right after making his donation to the WH Foundation, Epstein gets out of the focus of Tower Financial Ponzi Scheme prosecution.
In court hearings, FBI reports and affidavits throughout 1994 and 1995, prosecutors and FBI agents referred to Hoffenberg's "co-conspirators," "confederates" and "others" – no more mention of him.
Why Hoffenberg did not give prosecutors details of Epstein's role in the scheme as part of his bid for a reduced sentence remains something of a mystery.
Another lawyer involved in the criminal prosecution of Hoffenberg says. "In a criminal investigation like that. when there is a guilty plea, to be quick and dirty about it, discovery is always incomplete…. They don't have to line up witnesses: they don't have to learn every fact that might come out on cross-examination."
>>> 1994 – The Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky imbroglio.
Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton for civil money damages in 1994 alleging that Clinton had propositioned her in a hotel room years earlier. In the course of the long and bitter litigation, Jones's lawyers identified other women with whom Bill Clinton allegedly had intimate relationships. They included Gennifer Flowers and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
>>> 1994: The period starts from which the charges against Ghislaine Maxwell stem from (until 1997).
Here begins the period of activities of the Epstein sex trafficking ring for which Maxwell is now being prosecuted by the NYSD.
>>> 1995: Lynn de Rothschild's letter to Bill Clinton about Epstein and 'currency stabilization'.
From 1995, there has surfaced a Letter by Lynn Forrester (de Rothschild) to President Bill Clinton, talking about Epstein and "currency stabilization". Lynn was also, it bears noticing, the person who introduced Epstein to lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
>>> 1995: Epstein is made director of the Wexner Foundation and Wexner Heritage Foundation.
He was also the president of Wexner's Property, which developed part of the town of New Albany outside Columbus, Ohio where Wexner lived. Epstein made millions in fees by managing Wexner's financial affairs.
Epstein often attended Victoria's Secret fashion shows, and hosted the models at his New York City home, as well as 'helping aspiring models get work with the company'.
If you know what I mean.
>>> 1997 – The Clinton Foundation is launched.
It has surfaced later on, during his prosecution in Florida, a letter by Epstein's lawyers filed in court, stating that Jeffrey Epstein had helped conceive and launch the Clinton Foundation to the tune of $4 million.
Let me repeat: Epstein's legal team made the UNCHALLENGED claim that the soon-to-be convicted sex offender had been one of the people that conceived and launched the Clinton Foundation.
How that is not front and center of every story about the both of them, we will never know.
>>> 1998: Bill Clinton denies ever having "sexual relations" with Lewinsky.
Her name had already come to the attention of Independent Counsel Ken Starr, who sought her cooperation in his own investigation.
In front of a federal grand jury, Clinton acknowledged the personal relationship with Lewinsky and later appeared on television to offer a public apology. A vote in the U.S. House of Representatives was held that impeached the president.
Clinton settled the Paula Jones lawsuit for $850,000 but the terms did not demand acknowledgement of any wrongdoing. In February 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice.
>>> 2002/2003 – 27 Flights on Lolita Express.
We all know that birds of a feather fly and flock together.
Bill Clinton had a Lolita Express' Frequent Flyer Mileage card: Clinton has 27 documented flights on Epstein's plane, some of it DURING OFFICIAL CLINTON FOUNDATION TRIPS.
YES, YOU READ IT RIGHT.
Official Clinton Foundation trips on the Lolita Express. Makes some sense, if only in retrospect.
Lately, images of Clinton pictured embraced with sex slave Chauntae Davis have surfaced, and also receiving massage on Airport Lobby from the same young girl.
Listen investigative journalist Conchita Sarnoff:
>>> Around 2001: Epstein victim claims to have seen Clinton on the 'Pedophile Island'.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre said, in correspondence to her lawyers, that Clinton visited the private Caribbean island of Little Saint James some time after his presidency ended, in 2001.
Virginia Giuffre told investigators that she, Ghislaine Maxwell and two other 'young girls' from New York were also on the island at the time.
Virgina Roberts Giuffre
When she asked Epstein what Clinton was doing on the island, she claims the King of Pedophiles laughed and said: 'He owes me a favor.'
'He never told me what favors they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious, or if it was just a joke,' she said.
>>> 2005-2006: Investigation of Palm Beach PD takes place.
This is the point where most narratives of the Epstein case begin, but for the purposes of our story here, it's a moment when all the major developments had already taken place, and the tragic consequences were just about to unfold.
The Palm Beach PD investigation made it clear Epstein was training his trafficking victims as sex slaves.
>>> 2006 – Charges are filed that could put Epstein behind bars for the rest of his life.
In the same year that he was fighting for his survival and his liberty, Epstein made a sizable donation to the same Clinton Foundation he claims to have helped build.
"Still, others have quietly welcomed Epstein's cash. His former charity, the C.O.U.Q. Foundation, donated $25,000 to Bill and Hillary Clinton's charity, according to C.O.U.Q.'s 2006 tax return. The group is listed among past and present donors on the Clinton Foundation's website.
>>> 2007: Hillary Clinton gave Ghislaine Maxwell's nephewa job at US State Department.
Alexander Djerassi was given his first job with the former First Lady straight out of college, and was given "special treatment" by Clinton.
>>> 2008 – The sweetheart plea deal for Epstein is reached.
This is also a preferred starting point for many narratives about Epstein. It would make us forget that it was not the first, but the second time he evaded justice for his crimes.
Also, on both occasions, Epstein made a donation to a Foundation run by Clinton right before his escape from punishment. It can be just a coincidence, if you believe in that.
We now know for a fact that powerful people told then-US Attorney Alex Acosta to stand down because "Epstein belonged to intelligence."
>>> 2008: Hillary loses primary to Barak Obama.
Maxwell's nephew Alexander Djerassi served as policy associate for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign when she lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama.
>>> 2009: Alexander Djerassi joins Hillary's State Department – where he worked as a 'special assistant'.
This shows more than mere cronyism on Clinton's part. It shows an enduring bond of the Clintons and the Maxwells.
>>> 2009: Chelsea and Maxwellpartying on boat. 2010: Maxwell on Chelsea's wedding.
Ghislaine Maxwell became a close friend of Chelsea Clinton. The family grew close with Maxwell after Clinton left office in early 2001.
"The Clintons were relatively intimate with her," said a friend of Maxwell's. "She ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close."
She vacationed on a yacht with Chelsea in 2009 and attended her wedding to Marc Mezvinsky the following year.
>>> 2011: Epstein downplays his Florida conviction.
The new, free Epstein, believing himself shielded by an NPA (Non-Prosecute Agreement), tells the New York Post, "I'm not a sexual predator, I'm an 'offender'. It's the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel."
>>> 2012: Epstein buys a painting of Clinton in drag, sporting a blue dress.
The painting of Clinton was purchased from the 2012 Tribeca Ball, a fundraiser for the school. The painter believes it was sold for about $1,300.
>>> 2013: Maxwell was still in good standing with the CGI.
Maxwell was associated with the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, when it promoted a "commitment to action" by a group that included Maxwell's environmental nonprofit, the TerrarMar Project, which she shuttered in the wake of Epstein's arrest.
Everyone has a right to a proper defense, and that includes the Clintons, no doubt about that. However, when he instructs his PR team to downplay his association with the Epstein ring like it was of no consequence, former President Clinton is insulting the public's intelligence.
The fact is that the close relationship between Clinton and the King of Pedophiles is extremely disturbing for all but the most dedicated DNC shills. And rightly so.
Bill and Jeff got on famously, and contrary to the saying, they made the most logical bedfellows.
Thick as thieves.
Read more of the work of Paul Serran at https://www.paulserran.com/
Frank report investigation has been very good on this topic
Heidi H says:
While you're quoting Ms. Giuffre, the young lady also said — under oath in filed court declarations — she was forced to have sex with Donald Trump on 3 different occasions…
Giuffre did not say she or any of the other underage girls ever had sex with Bill Clinton (although I wouldn't put it past him given his record).
Wrong. Ms Giuffre never said anything like that. You either lie or are badly informed – or both. Ms Giuffre's father worked at Mar-a-Lago, and was a valued employee. Trump broke relations with Epstein and barred him from the hotel upon hearing of his abuse of her. Facts matter.
You are correct. It wasn't Virginia, it was Katie Johnson who made these allegations. She claimed in her sworn deposition (made public in a 2016 California case, I'll send to Frank as I can't paste the file here) that she had sex with Trump at the age of 13, after being groomed and introduced to him by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
IDK, of course, whether or not if Ms. Johnson is credible but the allegation was made.
Prior to Mr. Epstein's unfortunate encounter with a bedsheet at MDC, I might add.
Elaine Benes says:
Are you talking abou the Katie Johnson who dropped her lawsuit and was found to have been making it up? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3914012/Troubled-woman-history-drug-use-claimed-assaulted-Donald-Trump-Jeffrey-Epstein-sex-party-age-13-FABRICATED-story.html
Because I'm pretty sure that if there had even been a shred of evidence that the story was true every MSM outlet in the world would have been pushing it 24/7 for the last three years. They would have left no stone unturned, whether there was credible evidence or not, to promote this story to the hilt.
shadowstate1958 says:
What are Bill and Hillary Clinton hiding?
The fact that Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein set up the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
Billionaire Paedophile Jeffrey Epstein Created Clinton Foundation
Billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein has claimed that he was responsible for founding the Clinton Foundation, and that the Clinton's are now desperately trying to cover up his ties to the organization.
Lawyers representing Epstein claim that he co-founded the Clinton Foundation during plea negotiations with the U.S. Attorney's office.
Dailymail.co.uk reports:
In an attempt to boost Epstein's image before he was sentenced for soliciting an underage girl for prostitution in 2008, his attorneys tried to emphasize his close ties with Bill Clinton, Fox News reports.
A July 2007 letter to the South Florida State U.S. Attorney's office, written by lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, claimed that Epstein had been part of the original group that set up the Foundation's Clinton Global Initiative, focusing on 'some of the world's most pressing challenges.'
They also mention Clinton was a guest of Epstein who hosted a trip to Africa in 2002 on his private Boeing 727 – dubbed 'Lolita Express' – on behalf of the charity.
The plea deal negotiations were eventually successful and Epstein ended up serving just 13 months in prison and a year's home detention. He is a registered level three sex offender.
Flight records prove that the former president took dozens of trips on the jet which one woman, who claims to be a victim of Epstein, says was set up with a bed where some guests allegedly had group sex with young girls.
However, his involvement in the Clinton Foundation is less clear.
The former politician has always credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now the director of the Foundation, as coming up with the idea for the Global Initiative.
Epstein is not listed in any of the official paperwork of the Clinton Global Initiative as either its founder or director.
But there is evidence that the billionaire supported the Clinton Foundation financially.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reported data from a whistle-blower, that $81 million had been routed from HSBC Swiss accounts to The Clinton Foundation – including money from Epstein.
Epstein, who had various Swiss accounts with HSBC totally $3.5 million, transferred $25,000 to the Foundation in 2006.
A July 2007 letter to the South Florida State U.S. Attorney's office, written by lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, claimed that Epstein had been part of original group that set up the Foundation's Clinton Global Initiative, focusing on 'some of the world's most pressing challenges'
The Foundation has also had its fair share of controversy.
It has raised billions of dollars for charitable works around the world since it was founded in 2001.
The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was created as an evolution of the foundation, although no application was made to the IRS.
The goal was to solve world problems and bring together celebrities and powerful people.
While some organizations lavish praise on the Clintons for their philanthropic accomplishments.
However, critics have questioned how much money goes to the causes as they claim the Foundation is used as a 'slush fund' – a secret pool of money used to buy political favors.
Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel, who conducted studies of Clinton Foundation financial reports, alleged that Clinton had 'developed a methodology of exploiting epidemics and natural disasters to raise hundred of millions in "charitable donations" that in a relaxed regulatory environment could be diverted to personal gain, funding Hillary's political campaigns and supporting Democratic Party causes'.
Neither Epstein's lawyer's nor the Clinton Foundation responded to requests for comment.
https://newspunch.com/billionaire-paedophile-jeffrey-epstein-created-clinton-foundation/
Dr. Martin Pall Prophesied Societal Breakdown 'Within Months, Not Years' of the Rollout of 5G
WHO Wants to Introduce Sex Education for Infants and Toddlers


All premium Blitz stainless steel tips are machined from 316L stainless steel which is the best material in the industry. These are the most balanced manufactured tips in the industry. These premium tips are more resilient than most stainless steel tips out in the market. Tips, grips, tube stems are each sold separately and can be interchangeable. Tips work best when paired with premium Blitz back stem pieces. Proudly hand inspected and made in the USA.


text:
Debt Disclosure [Abstract]
Long-term Debt Long-term Debt
Credit Facility
On November 5, 2018, the Company entered into a loan agreement (the "Credit Facility Agreement") with the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation (the "Foundation"). The Credit Facility Agreement provided for a $5,000,000 revolving credit facility (the "Credit Facility") evidenced by a revolving promissory note (the "Revolving Note"). Borrowings under the Credit Facility Agreement bear interest at 12% per annum. Interest payments are due monthly through the term of the Credit Facility.
On August 31, 2021, the Company extended the Credit Facility Agreement with the Foundation by one year from November 4, 2021 to November 4, 2022. In conjunction with the extension of the Facility, the Company drew down $5,000,000 of funds from the Facility at 12% interest per annum due November 4, 2022.
Additionally, on August 31, 2021, the Company issued to the Foundation warrants, as an extension fee, to purchase 50,000 shares of the Company's common stock exercisable for five years from the date of issuance at the exercise price of $5.89 per share. The fair value of the warrants is $137,500 and is being amortized over the 14-month line of credit period. The fair value of the warrants are treated as deferred financing costs in the accompanying consolidated balance sheets at October 31, 2021 to be amortized over the term of the Credit Facility. Total unamortized costs at October 31, 2021 were $117,857. See Note 7 for additional information related to these warrants.
At October 31, 2021 and April 30, 2021, there were $5,000,000 and no outstanding borrowings, respectively, under the Credit Facility.
The Credit Facility Agreement contains customary representations and warranties and events of default. Pursuant to the Loan Agreement and the Revolving Note, all future or contemporaneous indebtedness incurred by the Company, other than indebtedness expressly permitted by the Credit Facility Agreement and the Revolving Note, will be subordinated to the Facility.
On March 6, 2019, the Company amended and restated the Credit Facility Agreement (the "Amended and Restated Facility Agreement") and the Revolving Note. The Amended and Restated Facility Agreement provides among other things that the Company's obligations thereunder are secured by a first priority lien in certain deposit accounts of the Company, all current and future accounts receivable of Aspen University and USU, certain of the deposit accounts of Aspen University and USU and all of the outstanding capital stock of Aspen University and USU.Pursuant to the Credit Facility Agreement, on November 5, 2018 the Company issued to the Foundation warrants to purchase 92,049 shares of the Company's common stock exercisable for five years from the date of issuance at the exercise price of $5.85 per share which were deemed to have a relative fair value of $255,071 (the "2018 Cooperman Warrants"). These warrants were exercised on June 8, 2020. The fair value of the warrants along with the upfront Facility fee were treated as debt issue cost assets to be amortized over the term of the loan, as the facility has not been drawn on. As a result of the aforementioned note extension, the remainder of the unamortized costs of $9,722 were written off during the quarter ended October 31, 2021. Total unamortized costs at October 31, 2021 and April 30, 2021 were $0 and $18,056, respectively
Name: us-gaap_DebtDisclosureAbstract
The entire disclosure for information about short-term and long-term debt arrangements, which includes amounts of borrowings under each line of credit, note payable, commercial paper issue, bonds indenture, debenture issue, own-share lending arrangements and any other contractual agreement to repay funds, and about the underlying arrangements, rationale for a classification as long-term, including repayment terms, interest rates, collateral provided, restrictions on use of assets and activities, whether or not in compliance with debt covenants, and other matters important to users of the financial statements, such as the effects of refinancing and noncompliance with debt covenants.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
NOBLE Web
Company A, Richardson Light Guard, Main Street circa early 1900s
"According to the 'History of the Richardson Light Guard,' the military company was formed after a discussion involving three workers at Thomas Emerson's Sons shoe manufacturing business in September 1851. The three, James F. Emerson, George O. Carpenter, and Joseph L.R. Eaton, agreed that the town of South Reading should have its own military company to keep the men occupied because they had 'no place to go except the taverns and stores.' After speaking to other young men of the town and calling a special meeting in the west school room of the Town House, a rally committee of five was appointed to canvas the town and encourage other men to join. A drill without firearms was held in Academy Hall on October 3rd and on October 7th, the company unanimously voted to be called the Richardson Light Guard in honor of company benefactor Dr. Solon O. Richardson who had donated $500 for company expenses. The Richardson Light Guard received its charter from the Adjutant General E.W. Stone on October 11, 1851 and was officially incorporated into the 7th Regiment of Light Infantry, 4th Brigade and 2nd Division, known by Company D. The Richardson Light Guard responded to calls for action in 1861, 1898 and again in 1917 as Company A of the Sixth Regiment." -- Text from calendar by Jayne M. D'Onofrio.
Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2004
Photo courtesy of the Wakefield Historical Society.
Massachusetts Infantry. Richardson Light Guard
Massachusetts -- Middlesex (county) -- Wakefield
Lucius Beebe Memorial Library
Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)
D'Onofrio, Jayne M.
Wakefield, Mass. : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department
View on Lucius Beebe Memorial Library's Digital Heritage site
Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department calendars
"Company A, Richardson Light Guard, Main Street circa early 1900s," NOBLE Digital Heritage, accessed January 20, 2022, https://digitalheritage.noblenet.org/noble/items/show/6901.


You take a deep breath and hit that momentous "send" button. Out goes the email that will deliver your cover letter and resume to your (cross your fingers!) future employer, and you breathe a sigh of relief. But that moment of ease doesn't last long—for the next few days, you check your email obsessively, watch your spam folder like a hawk, and keep hoping for a call from an unknown number.
And after such optimistic anticipation, nothing can fully prepare you for the heart-dropping feeling you experience when you receive an automatically generated, dream-crushing rejection email, letting you know that you haven't been selected for an interview.
What happened? Your application may have been perfect in your eyes—but if you didn't land an interview, it's time to take a good look at your application—from your potential employer's point of view. While recruiting preferences definitely vary by company, here are four common reasons why you didn't get that call back.
Sure, the job application process can be tedious and time consuming ("They want a cover letter, resume, three writing samples, and a YouTube video?"). But the first thing that will knock you out of the running for a new position is failing to follow instructions.
Whether you omit a required element of the application, send the email with something other than the requested subject line, or call the office when the company specifically requests no phone calls, you'll likely be dismissed right off the bat.
These offenses seem innocent enough, but to a hiring manager, they come across as warning signs that you're either blindly applying to as many jobs as possible (without actually looking at the application requirements), or that you lack attention to detail—something your future employer is probably not willing to risk.
When you come across a listing for your absolute dream position, it's hard to evaluate the job description with an objective eye. No matter what the position requires—and how your experience measures up—you're going to be 100% certain that you're the perfect fit.
Unfortunately, if the job requires 10-15 years of experience, the hiring manager isn't going to view the four years listed on your resume with such a lenient eye. Aiming high is one thing: If you don't meet the required experience by a small margin, but make up for it with other stellar professional accomplishments and skills, you may still have a chance. But if a glance at your resume clearly indicates that you're under-qualified for the job, you aren't going to be getting that interview—so don't waste your time, it's better spent elsewhere.
Once your resume makes it in front of the eyes of a hiring manager, you want it to scream, "I'm perfect for this job!" If you are qualified, but the recruiter can't immediately tell—she's going to toss your resume aside in favor of one from a candidate whose relevant experience jumps off the page.
Practically speaking, this means you can't submit the same resume and cover letter for every job you apply to. Since each position will list different requirements, each application you submit should highlight past experience and accomplishments specific to that particular job. So, take a look at the job description and the company's website and do some general industry research to determine how to present yourself as the perfect fit.
For example, if you're applying for a management position, the line items on you resume should focus on your experience leading teams, overseeing projects, and coaching and motivating employees. The time you spent writing blog posts for the marketing department, however, probably doesn't need a lengthy mention—or a mention at all.
If you're relying solely on an online applicant tracking system to decide the future of your employment, think again. While an automated system makes the process easier for employers, who no longer have to sift through the initial mountain of resumes, it presents a huge challenge for job hunters, whose applications tend to be passed over if they don't include the perfect set of keywords and phrases.
Remember that the meat of the job application process lies in forging a personal connection with someone at the company, with the goal of getting your resume into real, human hands. That means your job-hunting process should have started long before you submitted an application—with networking.
Whether you accomplish this by attending industry events, reaching out via social media, or setting up an informational interview with someone at the company, creating a personal connection will allow you to skip the abyss altogether. Since you'll have a business card in hand by the time you send in your resume, you'll be able to follow up directly.
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FCN: A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noël)—Q&A With Arnaud Desplechin
A French film festival in San Francisco has been long overdue and highly anticipated, as was proven in force by the capacity audience for the San Francisco Film Society's French Cinema Now ("FCN") opening night screening of Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noël) at San Francisco's Clay Theater in the Upper Fillmore.
After acknowledging the festival's sponsors, Graham Leggat—Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society ("SFFS")—then generously shouted out to loyal SFFS members Netta and Mike Fedor for celebrating their 30th anniversary at the opening night of FCN. "What could be more romantic than an evening of French cinema?" Leggat beamed.
"Over the next five days," Leggat continued, "you will see entries from all sorts of genres addressing all aspects of the human condition." Encouraging FCN's opening night audience to come back during the course of the festival to catch the Special Preview Presentation of Pascal Bonitzer's Alibi (Le grand alibi, 2008) as well as Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's film Actresses (Actrices, 2007)—"Which first surfaced at the New York Film Festival many many months ago and has had trouble getting a release in the United States because of music rights. This may be the only opportunity you get to see this film as the rights show no sign of clearing any time soon."—Leggat likewise drew attention to Benajmin Marquet's equestrian documentary Lads and Jockeys (Lads et jockeys, 2006) and, of course, FCN's closing night film, the Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Class (Entre les murs, 2008) by Laurent Cantet.
"None of that," Leggat qualified, "should draw our attention at the moment from the wonderful film we are to see here tonight. Extraordinary, novelistic, part melancholic melodrama, part indescribable fable, about a family brought together like it or not for three days during the holidays made in inimitable fashion by the most daring and accomplished French filmmaker working today." Leggat then invited Arnaud Desplechin to the stage. After warm applause, Desplechin—charming, with mirthful eyes—admitted he felt stupid for not knowing what to say.
Leggat added before starting A Christmas Tale that FCN would likewise be screening in coming days Desplechin's first film Life of the Dead (La vie des morts, 1991)—"which is almost impossible to see in this country"—as well as Desplechin's 1996 tour de force My Sex Life … or How I Got Into an Argument (Comment je me suis dispute ... Ma vie sexuelle) with two of the key actors that Arnaud has worked with many times and who likewise appear in A Christmas Tale: Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric. [This Q&A transcript is not for the spoiler-wary!]
Leggat welcomed Desplechin back to the stage after the screening of A Christmas Tale to field questions from his appreciative audience, with interpretive assistance from Donald McMahon. Leggat started the questioning off: "Where to begin, Arnaud? This film is so restless, always moving, all the scenes from a different angle, a different approach to the viewer, a snow storm, a thousand fragments. How on earth did you put this together? How much footage did you have in the editing room? How many shots went into creating this universe?"
"A lot, I guess," Desplechin grinned. After the laughter subsided, he offered that one lie producers frequently advocate is that film is expensive, when actually film is not that expensive. He doesn't count shots; he just films.
"I understand," Leggat pursued, "but, you must have had an enormous amount of material to work with. Did you edit it? Or did you work directly with the editor?"
Desplechin claimed that—since he was a student in film school—he has frequently worked as a director of photography or as an editor on small, short-budget films. Film is, after all, a collaborative project; it is not a novel. He couldn't imagine not collaborating with the editor or fellow writers. For example, on A Christmas Tale he worked with Emmanuel Bourdieu, with whom he'd worked on his earlier films Sex Life … or How I Got Into an Argument and Esther Kahn (2000). Sometimes he works with a lot of material because it's required to catch a scene's poetry; other times everything he has to say is achieved in a single take.
Leggat reminded Desplechin that once in an interview he said that when he's working with actors, he's not looking for a result; he wants them to try and so they dig in all directions. "Certainly to me, to us, it seems very much like that in this film; but, tell us something about the process of working with a cast this big with so many individual stories, with so many glimpses."
Desplechin remembered that interview with Film Comment, and offered: "I couldn't work with an actor if he's giving me just the 'right' performance because actually I do not know exactly what is the 'right' performance, you know? I'm writing lines—I hope they are good lines for acting—and after that I just hope and pray that something happens on the set, that I will have another understanding of those lines that I have written." What he loves is when his actors, as human beings, strive to find several meanings in his written lines. Unable to completely translate a saying in French that amounts to the idea that stage directions are cheap lines, Desplechin offered by example that—though the script might say "she cries"—it might be more truthful to the scene if she laughs. As a director he waits and tries to create the conditions on the set where, hopefully, something mystical, religious, or miraculous might appear.
As "a straight and simple example" Desplechin mentioned the scene towards film's end where the daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny)—who, incidentally can likewise be seen in Pascal Bonitzer's Alibi—forlornly asks her father Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) why she is always unhappy and what is missing from her life? Her father protectively answers, "Your brother." When Desplechin wrote that line, he wrote it "almost stupidly", he just thought it was a good line for the scene and it wasn't until the actors began performing it that they discovered a complex tension within the line. It's quite possible that when Abel says, "Your brother", he is obsessively referencing his dead son Joseph; but, Elizabeth understands and accepts her father's remark as her own obsessive preoccupation with her brother Henri. They are so sure they are communicating and that they have an emotional connection; but, in truth, they are actually speaking about two different brothers. This is the true meaning that the actors, through their performances, add to the cheap lines that he wrote. It makes the scene much more interesting and human.
Abel tries to soothe Elizabeth by quoting from Nietzsche's prologue to On the Genealogy of Morals (which Desplechin exquisitely renders as his camera slowly pans the snow-laden streets of Roubaix): "We don't know ourselves, we knowledgeable people—we are personally ignorant about ourselves. And there's good reason for that. We've never tried to find out who we are. How could it ever happen that one day we'd discover our own selves? With justice it's been said that 'Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also.' Our treasure lies where the beehives of our knowledge stand. We are always busy with our knowledge, as if we were born winged creatures—collectors of intellectual honey. In our hearts we are basically concerned with only one thing, to 'bring something home.' As far as the rest of life is concerned, what people call 'experience'—which of us is serious enough for that? Who has enough time? In these matters, I fear, we've been 'missing the point.'
"Our hearts have not even been engaged—nor, for that matter, have our ears! We've been much more like someone divinely distracted and self-absorbed into whose ear the clock has just pealed the twelve strokes of noon with all its force and who all at once wakes up and asks himself 'What exactly did that clock strike?'—so we rub ourselves behind the ears afterwards and ask, totally surprised and embarrassed 'What have we really just experienced? And more: 'Who are we really?' Then, as I've mentioned, we count—after the fact—all the twelve trembling strokes of the clock of our experience, our lives, our being—alas! in the process we keep losing the count. So we remain necessarily strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves, we have to keep ourselves confused. For us this law holds for all eternity: 'Each man is furthest from himself.' Where we ourselves are concerned, we are not 'knowledgeable people.' " (Translation by Ian C. Johnston.)
"Speaking of the father and Joseph," Leggat queried, "and how Joseph's death has created the father, did you imagine always that you would start with that scene at the graveyard where he addresses the camera?"
Yes, Desplechin affirmed. When he started to write A Christmas Tale, he wanted to work with the popular American genre of the Thanksgiving dinner; but, of course, since he filmed in France, he shifted the family gathering to the Christmas holiday. Those lines that he wrote for the father at the graveyard are obscure threnodian lines that are rich material for an actor and he borrowed them from the American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose own son died at the age of seven. Desplechin was admittedly confounded by Emerson's "Threnody", a poem in which Emerson strangely celebrates the death of his child, an experience which is one of the most cruel that life can offer. At the graveyard, Abel contests the value of tears and professes to be happy at the death of Joseph, claiming he has lost nothing. What a strange statement! (Additionally, it did not escape my notice that in the film's Christmas gift exchange, Abel gives his wife a volume of Emerson's writing; a lucid example of Desplechin's exquisite textuality.)
At this juncture Leggat opened the questioning up to Desplechin's appreciative audience. A cinema studies instructor expressed his interest in Desplechin's observation regarding the multiple meanings possible in a film. (Elsewhere—in fact—Desplechin has stated, "You can't stop a film from meaning things.") This instructor said he often argues with his students about intended and ascribed meanings in films. In one particular scene in A Christmas Tale, for example, the mother Junon (Catherine Deneuve) asks Henri, "Where are you coming from?" and he replies, "Where are you going?" Henri could be asking something as simple as what hospital she's going to, or could be saying something more telling about oblivion.
To argue is the point, Desplechin responded. "It's not about the will of the so-called director." The two lines the instructor was quoting—"Where are you coming from?" and "Where are you going?"—can be performed with similar signification. There is, in fact, a bizarre association with those lines in that Junon has earlier characterized Henri as behaving like "a little Jew." The first lesson you would learn from the Talmud is to never answer a question except with another question. So Henri's response is a Talmudic way of answering his mother's question. It becomes a kind of game. It provides a hue to Mathieu's character, which is like a Talmudic joke. Or you could have the other signification. The point is not what it means.
By further example, Desplechin alluded to the final scene in A Christmas Tale where there is a small shadow puppet theater above which is written "The Castle of Theseus." What does this mean? When he was 12 years old, Desplechin loved Greek mythology. Theseus is the story of an Athenian youth lost in a labyrinth. Perhaps the little boy Joseph wrote this above the shadow theater to express that he too was lost? On top of that, the script references William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in which the duke of Athens is likewise named Theseus and from which Elizabeth quotes in the film's final coda. "Which is the right meaning is not the point," Desplechin reiterated. "Is it beautiful? Is it magic? Are the actors happy? Are you happy to see the actors acting?" This is the film's created, working tension.
I then asked, "You've often stated that the characters you have Mathieu Amalric play possess the faults you wish you had. What are those faults that you love in Amalric's portrayals?"
"Oh God," Desplechin grinned, "the fact that he's so gross. I would love to be so drunk. If I could steal from my best friend. I'm jealous. When he steals the meds from Paul, it's so vile. It's so nice!"
One gentlemen was impressed with the unusual amount of medical detail in A Christmas Tale and he wondered if Desplechin had personal experience with bone marrow transplants or if it was just a subject he had extensively researched?
Hopefully, Desplechin answered, he would never have this kind of personal experience. But when he began working on the script and shaping the relationship between Junon and Henri, and exploring the theme of banishment, he came across a French volume which laid out the ethical complications of bone marrow transplants in a mythopoeic manner. The bone marrow transplant became the perfect mechanism to bring the family together. To further the script, he then visited several hospitals and interviewed the authors of the book he had found. His manner of writing was simply to imagine everything and then to confirm it for scientific accuracy. Surprisingly, his wildest imaginings proved to be medically accurate. France and the United States lead the field in bone marrow transplants, which are known not only for their physical danger, but for their psychological provocation, which intrigued Desplechin. He could understand why someone would be afraid of, let's say, a liver transplant or a blood transfusion because you can imagine a liver transplant or see a blood transfusion; but, bone marrow is an unknown substance. Yet it has this strange psychological effect fraught with poetry, either in the host, or the donor, or the family member who cannot donate. He endeavored to be as respectful as possible by being medically accurate and as realistic as possible to, thereby, achieve the mythopoeic.
Another audience member expressed his appreciation of the extraordinary usage of music in A Christmas Tale and he wondered if Desplechin shot sequences with specific pieces of music in mind or whether the music was layered onto the film afterwards in the editing room? For him it felt as if the music spoke to the inner life of the characters in an uncanny and significant manner.
Desplechin said he would love to answer that he knew which music he was going to use before he shot sequences in the film, but that would not be the truth. Rephrasing his earlier statement that he writes "cheap lines" of direction that are given later hue by the performances of the actors, Desplechin likewise uses music to enhance what is the heart of any given scene. In the editing room, he often removes the sound to see what emotions are being shown on the film, intuits which music would be most expressive, adds it and—more often than not—time and time again the music and the spoken words match perfectly.
Leggat sought clarification and asked Desplechin if he edited the film without dialogue? Desplechin replied that his first edit is with the dialogue but that if he encounters a scene which is proving problematic because it is not enough or is too plain, he removes the dialogue and converts his film into something of a silent movie, so that he can watch the emotions that are being portrayed and find a way to use music to pronounce those emotions. Desplechin reminded his audience that excellent dialogue was often written for silent movies even though you never hear it and the intertitles abbreviate the script. Some of Ernst Lubitsch's scripts for his silent films are quite remarkable. Reiterating what he has often stated in interviews, Desplechin is still 12 years old inside and—when he watches movies—he often watches them as he did when he was 12 years old. Which is to say that even though he didn't always understand what the adults were saying on screen, he understood the emotions they were expressing and—thereby—understood the scenes. He practices that still. If he is having a problem with a scene, he removes the lines to "listen" to the emotions that are being displayed. If he finds the right music, it will provide the hue to those emotions and when he adds the dialogue track back, then the words work.
Another audience member was intrigued by the Christmas play put on by the boys Baptiste (Clément Obled) and Basile (Thomas Obled), seen by everyone in the family except the quarreling siblings Elizabeth and Henri upstairs, whose ongoing enmity was ostensibly the play's central theme. As Andrew O'Hehir observed in his review for Salon, the children's play "recapitulates the central themes of the larger story in small but broad strokes: banishment, punishment, repentance, forgiveness."
"One could say," Desplechin responded, "that you have two plays; one upstairs and one downstairs." Apologizing for a lack of even false modesty, Desplechin admitted he loved that scene, even if he wrote it. He thinks the play is fascinating in the way the children come up with an answer for why the siblings are fighting (the one prince has slept with a goat) and devise a proper punishment (his arm is chopped off). Such physical mutilation inspires emotional contrition.
Desplechin was asked if he could talk about the scene with the mathematical probabilities of Junon's survival on the chalk board. The concern with the percentages of survival is a specific aspect of bone marrow transplants, Desplechin explained. For physicians it's a problematic scenario because it's quite possible they must kill two people in order to save one. Life suddenly becomes a mere percentage of chance. Of note is that the calculations on the chalkboard are mathematically correct and—during the filming of the sequence—Desplechin insured that one of the mathematicians was present in the next room watching the filming on a monitor to insure that the corrections made by the actors on the chalkboard remained accurate. The ironic truth of all this is that a life and death can be formulaically charted on a chalkboard. What Desplechin found interesting was to monitor Junon's response to this information. "It's not that nice to suddenly see your life reduced to two figures." Plus, Junon does not understand—just as Desplechin does not really understand—what the figures all mean. Once again, it reminded him of when he was 10 or so watching Alfred Hitchock's Torn Curtain on his grandparent's television. There was a scene where two scientists are arguing in front of a chalkboard, writing formulas about nuclear weapons. Desplechin didn't understand a word of what they were saying but the scene was full of pure tension, which he did understand from their facial expressions. He saw that the actors were delighted to perform these lines, secure with the mathematician present in the adjoining room.
Finally, one young woman expressed interest in the dynamic between Catherine Deneuve and her real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni and how in A Christmas Tale their characters didn't really like each other. She wondered how much of the casting influenced Desplechin's writing?
"When I'm writing," Desplechin replied, "I'm never thinking of any actor." For simple reasons. The writing process is so long—it took him at least a year to write the script for A Christmas Tale—that, if he'd had someone in mind during that year of writing, he would be bored with that actor by the time it came to shooting. They wouldn't surprise him any longer and—as he mentioned before—by the time he gets to the set, he wants to be surprised and informed by his actors. When he and his co-writers are developing the script, they sometimes think of dead actors in the roles to help formulate them; but, never live ones. Afterwards, when it came to casting the role of Junon's daughter-in-law, it took Desplechin nearly two weeks to muster up the courage to invite Chiara who he thought would be perfect for the role for fear that it would cause tension between Chiara and her real mother Catherine Deneuve; precisely because Junon does not care for Chiara's character Sylvia (except for when she betrays her husband and sleeps with Simon (Laurent Cappelluto)). Only then does Junon become intrigued by Sylvia. Despite this tension between the characters, both actresses were consummate professionals on the set and were not distracted by their mother-daughter bond.
With that, Graham Leggat closed the questioning and stated that "Tony" Scott in his review of A Christmas Tale for The New York Times wrote: "I swear, it filled me with unadulterated joy." "I think all of us here tonight felt that," Leggat concluded.
Cross-published on Twitch. Photo of Arnaud Desplechin courtesy of Robin Holland.
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text:
Another unprecedented victory for abuse victims
Judge lets wrongful death/suicide case go forward
Decision is believed to be first of its kind in Missouri
It's based on "fraud" allegedly committed by Catholic officials
Boy who was repeatedly abused by notorious priest took his own life
At a news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their attorney will disclose that they
--have just won an unprecedented ruling from a KC judge in wrongful death suit stemming from child sex abuse and cover ups,
--explain how it might help bring justice and healing to other families who have lost a loved on to suicide and
--urge others with knowledge or suspicions of suicides by abuse victims to come forward.
Friday, June 29 at 2:25 p.m.
Law office of attorney Rebecca Randles, VFW Building, 406 West 34th Street in Kansas City MO
A couple whose son was abused by a priest and who committed suicide
For apparently the first time in Missouri history, a judge has let an unusual wrongful death lawsuit – prompted by the suicide of a clergy sex abuse victim – move forward based on the charges of fraud against Catholic officials.
Yesterday, in a two page ruling, Judge Michael W. Manners sided with Donald and Rosemary Teeman, who say their son took his own life in 1983 in after having been molested by Msgr. Thomas J. O'Brien. Church officials sought to have the case dismissed based on the statute of limitations. But the judge ruled that the alleged fraud perpetrated by diocesan staff "tolled" the statute.
The ruling is also only the third time that a Missouri court has applied "fraudulent concealment" in a clergy sex abuse-related civil lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit (filed last September), Brian Teeman was repeatedly sexually assaulted by O'Brien (starting at age 11, from 1981-1983), mostly at Nativity parish in Independence. His parents learned of the abuse in July 2011 when another victim told them he saw O'Brien molest their son.
The suit says O'Brien would make boys "perform oral sex and mutual masturbation on each other, then require them to perform those acts on him" and "following the sexual encounters, he would require them to change into their robes, prepare communion, and serve at the mass." The suit also charges that "O'Brien forced silence on (boys) by telling them that they would be kicked out of the Catholic Church, they would go directly to hell and their parents would disown them."
According to the suit, KC church officials were told about O'Brien's crimes as long ago as 1972. Yet they let O'Brien keep "performing sacraments at the Kansas City Hospice until 2004."
(Last year, another man who was sexually violated as a boy by O'Brien, Jon David Couzens filed a child sex abuse lawsuit in which he reported witnessing O'Brien sexually abuse three boys. One of them has since committed suicide, the suit says. Couzens was abused by different KC area Catholic priest, Fr. Isaac True.)
O'Brien was ordained in 1950and is believed to be about 80 years old. He faces allegations that he molested more than two dozen children (sometimes along with fellow KC priest Fr. Thomas Reardon), often at a cabin on Lake Viking (northeast of Kansas City) and several parishes (St. Patrick's in Kansas City North, St. Elizabeth's, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Independence). O'Brien worked at several Catholic institutions (St. Pius X High school and St. Joseph Health Center). He still lives in the KC area and kept working as a priest until 2002. In 2008, Kansas City church officials refused demands by victims to have O'Brien defrocked. O'Brien was also chaplain for the Kansas City Missouri Police Department. He remains a priest today.
According to a Boston-based research group, at least 23 KC Catholic clerics stand accused, often several times, of molesting kids. Yet not one of them has ever faced criminal prosecution (with the recent exception of Ratigan, who is jailed on child porn charges).
Attorney Rebecca Randles of Kansas City MO (816 931 2200, 816 510 2704 cell) represents the alleged victim's parents.
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/30/3303809/no-longer-alone.html
http://www.snapnetwork.org/mo_parents_sue_diocese_their_abused_son_committed_suicide_090611
http://www.examiner.net/news/x219203065/Another-lawsuit-alleges-abuse
Attorney Rebecca Randles of Kansas City 816 931 9901, 816 5102704 cell, David Clohessy 314 566 9790 cell, [email protected], Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003, [email protected],
yu joel commented 2012-07-13 04:59:37 -0500
to mr. & mrs teeman,,,our full support to ur family im from philippines,,,
Frank Lostaunau commented 2012-07-11 18:51:46 -0500
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Teeman, My condolences to you and your loving family.
Thank you for pursuing justice for your son Brian. My family and friends have been deeply touched by your courage. Brian will live in the hearts of thousands and thousands of survivors.
frank lostaunau
Jeannie Guzman commented 2012-07-08 07:09:24 -0500
My condolences to the courageous parents and family of this young victim. Right now Australia is grappling with the suicides of several Altar boys in the Parramatta area, also called the "4 Corners" area of Australia. ABC Australia just released a documentary called, "Unholy Silence." It opened with a short commentary about the Monsignor Lynn trial, which could have far-reaching implications in Australias legal system, and in this case the coverups could well go up as far as Cardinal Pell's office. The Modus Operandi of the Church has always been to keep crimes of sexual abuse of children and teens out of the news until the statute of limitations expires or the perpetrator is dead. This lawsuit in Missouri, if allowed to go forward will be another precedent setting lawsuit, all over the world. I guarantee, Australia will be watching!
David Clohessy published this page in Media Events 2012-06-29 08:15:00 -0500


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Merlyn Soon
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Announced
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was announced at PlayStation's Future of Gaming event. The title will take place after the previous Ratchet and Clank game by Insomniac from 2016. The game will very likely be a PlayStation 5 exclusive, along with Insomniac's other big announcement, Spiderman: Miles Morales.
The Ratchet and Clank reboot came out in 2016 and saw huge success on the PlayStation 4. The game itself is a puzzle platformer, it also features a hybrid combat system that combines melee combat, ranged combat, and the use of different gadgets from Ratchet. According to developers, Ratchet's new arsenal will be more exciting than ever due to the new improvements made to the DualSense controller.
The developer also noted that ray tracing will be put to use in the upcoming sequel, and other new PlayStation features like 3D audio will also likely be implemented. The controller itself will now include adaptive triggers as well as haptic feedback. More details regarding how the game will implement PlayStation 5's new features will likely be announced soon.
The trailer showed Ratchet and Clank flying through multiple dimensional rifts, which threw them into different environments. A few of the environments include: a pirate ship, a rain forest full of dinosaurs, and a cyber-futuristic city. This was a strategic way to show off the PlayStation 5's new and improved SSD, which will allow much faster loading times into new levels and environments.
The end of the trailer also featured a female version of Ratchet, who is either an alternate version of Ratchet from another dimension or a new character entirely. The trailer did not include a reference to a release date, but fans will likely hear about the specifics of the game soon on the PlayStation website.
Source: PlayStation 5: Future of Gaming Event
Stay tuned at Gaming Instincts via Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for more gaming news.
Digital E3 Event Might also Be Cancelled – Rumor
The end of an era.
PlayStation 3 Games Reportedly Spotted On PlayStation 5 Store
More backward compatibility could be coming to PlayStation 5
God of War: Ragnarok On Track For 2022 Release
It looks like the Norse saga will end in 2022.


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Kyle Washington Cuts List to 11
Kyle Washington has cut his list to 11 schools.
The 6-foot-9, 215-pound power forward from Champlin, Minn. told SNY.tv Wednesday he's down to Baylor, Marquette, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Notre Dame, N.C. State, Illinois, Louisville, Iowa State, Ohio State and Washington.
Washington, who will spend his senior year at Brewster (N.H.) Academy alongside Jared Terrell and others, said he has no visits set yet.
"Not yet," he said. "Once I have them, I'll let you know."
Washington plans to be at Brewster by Sept. 8.
Marcus Lee Sets Duke Visit
Randle Would Consider Joining Twins, Wiggins at UK


1st Birthday cake smash sessions are becoming increasingly popular in New Zealand. Its such a fun way to capture your child on their 1st birthday! Its hard to know what to do to celebrate this exciting milestone - they haven't formed friendships, cant play pass the parcel and would rather play with the wrapping paper than the present itself. They don't really know what its all about and more often that not it ends up being a party for the parents to celebrate surviving the first year! But what little 1 year old doesn't like cake....or mess?
I have put together some information about cake smash sessions and what you can expect from a session with me.
The cake smash will need to take place in your home and this can be done inside or out. I am happy to provide a plain white backdrop which can be decorated how you like. The other option is to decorate a plain wall in your house. If there is carpet down you can purchase a clear plastic floor covering (from Bunnings or the like) which you can stick on your carpet and then just peel off and throw away when you are finished. Similar to what painters use! If you have wooden floors then no problem, you just get the mop out afterwards.
Your baby will get very messy so I suggest you have someone on hand to run a bath afterwards. If you own a big metal tub (or similar) this can be taken outside, bubble-bath added and some more photos taken!
What I suggest is that you have a couple of outfits for your child. Choose a cute outfit for a couple of traditional first birthday portraits - these can be taken with Mum and Dad and siblings and then you can change in to the other outfit for the cake smash. What your child wears for the cake smash is totally up to you but keep in mind the clothes will get extremely messy! Usually the child would wear just a nappy cover, a pair of shorts or maybe a cute tutu for a little girl.
Don't let the cake smash be the first time your child eats cake. Let them sample some cake a couple of times leading up to the cake smash so they get used to the taste and the texture of the icing. As crazy as it sounds, some children don't like the feel of the cake/icing on their hands and can find the session overwhelming. If they are a little bit shy and not wanting to dive in to their cake, having some of their favourite finger foods on hand to pop in to the cake might create some interest and encourage them along!
It is great to incorporate some decorations for the cake smash. This is totally down to taste - some clients like the less-is-more approach and in this case a bunting flag will do just nicely. Balloons are great too but you do have to be careful as they tend to cast colours and shadows. You can purchase fantastic decorations from craft shops, I am more than happy to send some suggestions your way. But really its up to you - there are no rules!
Use butter cream icing so the cakes is easy to break in to. Fondant is too hard and you wont get the messy look that cake smashes are all about! Don't have any small decorations on the cake as they can be a choking hazard.
The cake smash photo shoot will last around 30 minutes - the child will usually be well over it by then. The entire session will take around 60 minutes if you want some family photos before hand and then maybe some in the bath afterwards. The package can be tailored to suit.


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Dean Thrasher
Solution Architect specializing in Microsoft.NET and Sitecore
Sitecore MVP
Sitecore and StyleLabs
November 3, 2018 dthrasherLeave a comment
The big announcement at Sitecore Symposium this year was Sitecore's acquisition of StyleLabs, a marketing technology company that provides several software-as-a-service tools:
Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Marketing Resource Management (MRM)
It wouldn't be enterprise software without all the acronyms, would it?
Sitecore CEO Mark Frost talks with StyleLabs' co-founders at Sitecore Symposium 2018
This announcement was a big deal for Sitecore, because its current tool for handling media assets — the Sitecore Media Library — was increasingly showing its age. The structure and features of the Media Library haven't changed much in 10 years. It's one of the first things that partners needed to extend or replace for any company that was serious about managing digital media. And it had nothing to offer in terms of workflow tools apart from the simple "publishing approval" style of workflow used for web pages.
There were a few go-to solutions for DAM integrations — both Digizuite and ADAM Software (now part of Aprimo) have decent integrations with software. For any of the other capabilities listed above, you most likely would need to build your own solution.
So customers and partners were really pleased that Sitecore will have something first-party to offer in these areas. If the schedule holds, StyleLabs integration as a plug-in within by the end of 2018, with a full integration planned in the first half of 2019.
More than a product line extension?
While addressing a gap in its offering is important — especially since Sitecore often goes head-to-head with Adobe Experience Manager in big deals — I'm more excited about the long-term potential.
This acquisition brings some new technologies, new approaches, and new team members into the Sitecore family.
StyleLabs was founded in 2011, and its cloud-hosted, SaaS offerings reflect a later technology generation than Sitecore, whose roots go back before the turn of the millennium. (It says a lot about the strength of Sitecore's fundamentals that it has lasted this long!) As Sitecore modernizes its architecture stack, having the StyleLabs' expertise in SaaS technologies and business model will be invaluable.
While Sitecore was always great about storing and managing content and digital assets, in really didn't address the production of those assets in the first place. StyleLabs understands the creative workflow that goes into making these digital artifacts, and I hope to see their knowledge reflected in future versions of the Sitecore platform.
I also expect a strong of cross-pollination of ideas. Sitecore and StyleLabs execute similar concepts in different ways. For example, Sitecore structures information in a hierarchy or tree, which works extremely well for managing URLs in a website. StyleLabs takes a relational approach to content, which offers more flexibility but perhaps less consistency.
So there are a lot of cues — from software architecture to user interface — that these teams can take from each other. While filling gaps in the product line may boost the short-term, I'm really curious what this means for Sitecore over the long term.
Posted in Sitecore, Uncategorized
SCpbMD Catalog Sync Explained
November 27, 2017 dthrasherLeave a comment
I've been meaning to post this diagram for a while. I've used this to explain the Sitecore Commerce catalog data sync operation to at least three different clients since I drafted it this summer. And although I created it for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 version of the connector, it's similar for Dynamics AX and other PIM systems as well.
In the D365 box, you have the UI application, which admins can use to publish catalog data once it has been validated. There are a lot of elements that must be configured an working correctly to have a valid catalog, but a few of the key pieces are:
An online navigation hierarchy for your online channel
An assortment for your online channel containing released products
A catalog associated with the online channel
Products assigned to nodes on the online navigation hierarchy
Product attributes defined and attached to nodes on your online navigation hierarchy
Once the catalog is published, it's ready to go as far as the "headquarters" database is concerned. But in Dynamics AX / D365, it also has to be distributed — sent to the online channel database using distribution jobs.
Once the catalog is in the online channel database, the D365 Retail Server can read from it. External applications can read catalog data from the online channel database using the Retail Server APIs, a curious mix of web services that aren't quite WCF and aren't quite REST.
This is where the Sitecore part of the picture comes into play. Sitecore provides a sample console application that uses Sitecore's Data Exchange Framework to fetch data from the Dynamics Retail server. It transforms it into an XML file that can then be imported into Sitecore's Commerce Server. (Sitecore 9 also uses this catalog.xml file format, though the old commerce server components are no longer used.)
This places the product and category definitions and data into the product catalog database. This product catalog database acts as an "edge cache" that keeps just the products the site will use close to the infrastructure of the website itself. It provides some redundancy in case that communications problems occur between Sitecore and D365.
The last step in the process is the catalog data provider. Sitecore XP uses a data provider to access the product catalog database, creating virtual Sitecore items that appear within the Sitecore UI. Product and category data are not stored as "real Sitecore items" in the sense that they live in the standard Sitecore master or web databases.
Watch the arrows!
Note the color and direction of the arrows in the diagram above. The orange arrows are the ones controlled by the Sitecore console app and Data Exchange Framework. The arrows in blue are either part of standard D365 functionality or belong to extensions to the Sitecore platform. The orange arrows could have been labeled "Extract, Transform, and Load" because that's exactly the operations performed by the catalog sync. (If I ever redraw the diagram, I might update the labels to say just that!)
The direction of the arrows are important, too. Catalog information must be sent from AX HQ to the channel database by those batch distribution jobs. If those jobs aren't running, then no updates occur in the channel DB, and no updates will be returned in by the Retail Server API.
Once the data is available at the Retail Server, it's up to the Sitecore catalog sync process to fetch the latest data from the Retail Server. This can be run manually or as a scheduled job, but note that there are no notifications here — D365 doesn't push the data to Sitecore, Sitecore pulls the data when it needs to.
A sequence of batches
This is definitely not a real-time process. As you might imaging from the number of batches, pushes, and pulls shown in the diagram, it can take a significant amount of time to move an update — like a adding a new product to the catalog or setting up a new product attribute for a category — from D365 HQ into Sitecore XP. If every batch job involved executed on a 15 minute timer, it could take 45-60 minutes for that product to appear on the site. The interval could be longer depending on the size of the catalog and the number of changes made.
There's more than one way to do it
Although Sitecore provides the catalog sync code as part of its commerce connectors, it's really just an example or starter kit for us to use. In practice, you'll need to modify the logic used to generate the catalog.xml file to import into Sitecore. You may also need to move the data sync process to other servers for scalability or performance reasons. Or you could replace Sitecore's Data Exchange Framework with another ETL framework or a business process orchestration suite like BizTalk.
The connector is just a starting point for implementation, and hopefully the diagram and my explanation of it makes a good starting point for discussion with your team or client about how the process of syncing catalogs might work.
Posted in Sitecore, Sitecore Commerce, UncategorizedTagged commerce, D365, Sitecore, sync
Blue Green Deployments
April 8, 2017 dthrasherLeave a comment
I'm surprised that in 2017 more developers and IT departments haven't heard about blue-green deployment. But apparently that's been a problem since at least 2010, when Martin Fowler noted that blue-green deployment hadn't gotten the recognition it deserved. This is a DevOps pattern used widely for testing and deploying websites and webservices with minimal downtime in the cloud. Amazon Web Services now has a Code Deploy template for blue-green deployments. Microsoft lists the blue-green deployment technique first in its Azure Continuous Deployment whitepaper. It's safe to say that blue-green deployments have graduated from an edge technique to current state-of-the-art.
The idea behind blue-green deployment strategy is simple. When you want to test a new build of your website, you create a copy of your "blue" production instance in a stand-by or "green" environment. Then you deploy the latest code to the new green environment and perform a battery of tests on it. Once the green environment passes your load, performance, security and other tests, your direct traffic from the live "blue" infrastructure to the "green" instead.
You can leave the original blue infrastructure in place temporarily, just in case you want to roll back to the previous build. You could also decommission the blue infrastructure to save operating costs. When it is time for the next release, you make a new blue environment, deploy the release to it, and perform the tests again. If the release passes, you cut over from the currently live green environment to blue.
If releases are frequent enough or if you are doing this with physical servers, you can skip the decommissioning step, and simply alternate releases between the two environments. As long as you make sure to "reset" the standby environment back to a known baseline before your deploy your latest release to it.
There are three huge advantages to performing releases this way:
Your standby environment is a copy of production and fully scaled. You can run full acceptance, performance and load tests on this environment and be guaranteed that it will work the same in production — because it will be production, as soon as you direct traffic to it.
Cutover to a new build is almost instantaneous, since all you need to do is redirect traffic. There should be no downtime.
Rolling back to the previous is almost instantaneous, since all you need to do is redirect traffic to the previous environment. Disaster recovery is easy and your disaster recovery process is tested with every release.
Of course, there are some challenges to this approach:
You do have to have a fully scaled standby environment, which will increase hardware and software costs. You can minimize these in a cloud setting, however, because that standby environment can be decommissioned when it isn't needed.
You have to invest in DevOps. If you are building and tearing down environments on a regular basis, you'll need automated scripts for provisioning infrastructure, deploying code, and making configuration changes.
Your platform should be as stateless as possible. When a cutover happens, a user's next request will be handled by the new environment. Any state that must be maintained from one request to the next must be shared by both environments.
Handling schema updates for databases must be handled differently from regular code deployments.
Of the challenges, the most resistance to the idea usually comes with the hardware and software costs, usually because companies haven't embraced consumption pricing yet. With physical hardware or perpetual software licensing, you do wind up paying double for your production setup. But for critical applications it's probably worth the expense.
Schema updates remain a difficult engineering challenge too, but they always have been, regardless of the deployment model.
Here's a few other links on the blue-green deployment pattern, if you'd like to learn more:
https://www.trendmicro.com/azure/blue-green-deployments/
https://lostechies.com/gabrielschenker/2016/05/23/blue-green-deployment/
https://blog.anynines.com/blue-green-deployment/
http://shawnmclean.com/blue-green-deployments-with-octopus-deploy-and-azure-websites-from-tfs/
https://acaseyblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/blue-green-deployments-with-azure-web-apps/
https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/implementing-blue-green-deployments-aws
Learning Software Architecture
February 28, 2017 March 29, 2017 dthrasherLeave a comment
Like many web developers, I learned the art of writing code by trial and error, rather than through formal instruction. I'd look at examples on the Internet, read forum and blog posts, and occasionally consult a book or two. This worked surprisingly well — I've made a career out of it, and gained a lot of knowhow through hard-won experience.
You can't learn everything by trial and error, though. Sometimes the experiments take too long to run, or you can't afford to have the results blow up in your face. Although I'd figured out basic software architecture principles by observing what worked about past projects and what didn't, I wasn't very systematic about it. But hey, I could scribble a boxes-and-arrows diagram on a whiteboard and talk folks through it, and that was enough for most web applications.
My current employer, EPAM, takes software architecture seriously. I found this out when I was invited to serve on an assessment panel for Solution Architects seeking promotion, and I developed a bad case of impostor syndrome. It turns out that there are names for the different kinds of diagrams I'd been doodling, and methods for determining which customer requirements were architecturally significant. You could subject these ideas to analysis and evaluate tradeoffs in a systematic way instead of, you know, by gut feel.
My spidey-sense for software project disasters is pretty well attuned by this stage in my career, so I think I was able to ask reasonable questions of our crop of upcoming architects. But I could tell that several of our candidates were winging it, and I wondered if it was obvious that I was groping my way along as well.
So I decided to do something about it. After a bit of Googling, I found out about TOGAF and the SEI, and the fact that there's an international standard for software architecture, ISO/IEC 42010. Neat. And then I found the book Software Architecture in Practice.
Software Architecture in Practice
I've spent the last few weeks reading it through, chapter by chapter. As textbooks go, it's well-written. It's also (as befits a book about architecture) very well-structured, so it's something I plan on using as a handy reference when I want to know about tactics for improving performance, or about tradeoffs between usability and security.
It's also interesting to see a bit of what software architecture looks like in other domains. As a web developer, I don't often need to think about the constraints imposed on real-time or embedded systems. But I do think a lot about scalability, availability, and some of the other quality attributes described in the book. It's nice to have these cataloged, with approaches for how to address these needs and what the implications are.
I agree with the authors that the term "quality attributes" is much better than the more commonly used "non-functional requirements." Most people seem to assume that the non-functional requirements are non-interesting and non-important, when in fact they mark the difference between unicorn and fail whale.
Later chapters address documenting and evaluating software architecture, and software architecture's relationship to modern software development methodologies, like the various flavors of Agile.
I was really glad to have found a book that captured so much of what I'd learned in the school of hard knocks, and that offered a few new ideas and tools for me to apply to future projects. Naturally, I loaned it out to one of my coworkers and immediately recommended it to another Solution Architect I'd been mentoring at EPAM.
"Oh yes," he said, "I know that book. It's on the curriculum for EPAM's Software Architecture University. That's a good one."
On the curriculum…? I guess I still have a way to go before I can ditch that impostor syndrome.
February 19, 2017 February 26, 2017 dthrasherLeave a comment
It's taken me quite a while to set up a professional blog, despite the fact that creating one is extremely easy these days. It isn't the effort, but the motivation.
There are two types of programmers in the world: starters and finishers. Your starters can't wait for the next project, the next technology or the next brilliant idea to come along. That drive toward novelty makes them ideal designers, prototypers, and R&D staff. But please don't bother them with details, edge cases, or error conditions. Don't ask them to maintain a piece of code, or tune an operational system. There are always a million more interesting things to pursue!
I'm a finisher. That means the blinking prompt or the blank page terrifies me. Where a starter sees endless greenfields and boundless opportunities, I see a beautiful, elegant white starkness about to be marred by my amateur scribblings.
So I didn't want to start a new blog. What I really wanted to do was rebuild my old blog. The one from my ill-fated attempt to start a software company during the Global Financial Crisis. There are good articles there, posts I'm proud of writing. I'm sure I could salvage those, update them, refactor them, improve them… yes, I'm a finisher all right.
But sometimes you do need to start over, let go of the baggage, and begin again.
Hello, world.
Although I'm tempted to find the old road construction animated GIF that nearly ruined the Internet for everyone, I'll trust that you know exactly what I'm talking about. Pardon me while I get organized.


A battle between two future hall of fame light heavyweights is set to take place super bowl weekend. Forrest Griffin and Rich Franklin are targeted to fight at UFC 127. This rumored card looks really freakin good. With Anderson Silva taking on Vitor Belfort for the title, and Jon Bones Jones fighting Bader. Rich Franklin is coming off an unbelieveable win over Chuck Liddel. He knocked him out with a BROKEN ARM! Forrest hasnt fought for about a year and is coming off his win over Tito Ortiz in a split decision. I believe Rich Franklin will win this fight just because Forrest Griffin has looked flat out awful in his previous 3 fights. I think it will be a knockout in the second round. Also Anderson Silva will keep his belt and Bones Jones will move up the rankings with another dominating win.


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