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Patent Law Reform: Injunctions and Damages : Hearing Before the ..., 4. sējums
Autori: United States, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
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nies from making a comprehensive search for prior art so they are not going to be penalized later on. We have to look at those issues.
We have to remember that we are ultimately talking about the products that would be available to consumers. The ongoing Blackberry dispute everybody is checking their pockets-that drives this home in a powerful way. I don't know who is right in it. I do know that I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard they had an agreement. Now, we understand the agreement may be unraveling. So a lot of us are going to be watching this case, particularly with a nervous tick in our thumbs. Some people, probably our spouses, our staff and others, wish that we wouldn't watch it so closely, but it could affect millions of people.
I hope the ruling in Merck v. Integra Lifesciences is going to provide a much needed boost to scientific research. I would like to see greater sharing of drug patents. I would like to see an end to the practices by which some companies delay competition through anticompetitive conduct.
A few years ago, I authored and we passed legislation to force companies signing non-compete agreements to disclose those agreements to the FTC. But I think the FTC now and the Department of Justice have to do a lot more to encourage competition. I hope that we will be able to soon turn to the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. It was passed by the House overwhelmingly, H.R. 810, with 200 House cosponsors. It passed with 238 votes. It is critically important to certainly those whose family members who are suffering from debilitating diseases—Parkinson's Alzheimer's, diabetes, spinal cord injuries. They are watching this. It has been shunted aside and many of us here want to move forward. Many in both parties want to move forward and I hope that the Republican leadership will allow us to.
So, Mr. Chairman, you and I have tackled complex issues like these before. Somehow, we have worked them out. We have worked together on them and we have gotten them on the President's desk and we have gotten them signed, and I think we can do it again.
Chairman HATCH. I do, too.
Senator LEAHY. I will put my whole statement in the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy appears as a submission for the record.]
Chairman HATCH. Well, thank you, Senator.
Senator Kennedy would like to make a brief statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We
want to hear from our witnesses and I appreciate your courtesy.
I represent a State that prides itself on innovation and creativity not only in the sciences, but also in the arts. Patents are enormously important in the biotech industry and the pharmaceutical industry and the life sciences industry, important in terms of our universities. Software is enormously important in my State. We want to make sure that the patent system is going to work for those who are creative and are innovative. About 50 percent of all the health patents are in my home State of Massachusetts, so this is enormously important.
There is also an appropriate role in terms of the software industry in terms of these issues in terms of injunctions, and I want to hear from our very distinguished panel today. I am certainly open to see that we make what changes and modifications might be useful and helpful, and be valuable in terms of advancing the common interest, which is progress in terms of the economy and progress in terms of innovation.
Mr. Solo of MIT recently pointed out that 50 percent of our growth as a Nation over the last 40 years has been innovation. And what we are talking about here is how we are going to recognize innovation and how we are going to give that protection and reward, but also as innovation is moving so rapidly in the software area how we are going to be sensitive to some of those issues as well.
This is an enormously complex issue which we don't visit very, very often, so we need a lot of help. We have got a very distinguished panel and I look forward to hearing from them.
I thank the Chair.
Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Senator Kennedy.
We are very pleased to have with us today a number of very important witnesses: Carl Gulbrandsen, Managing Director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, from Madison, Wisconsin; Jonathan Band, on behalf of Visa and the Financial Services Roundtable; Mark A. Lemley, a professor at the Stanford Law School, in Stanford, California; Jeffrey P. Kushan, who is a partner at Sidley Austin Brown and Wood here in Washington; Chuck Fish, Vice President and Chief Patent Counsel for Time Warner, Inc.; and J. Jeffrey Hawley, President of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, and Legal Division Vice President of Eastman Kodak Company.
We feel very honored to have you quality people here to help guide us and help us to try and find some solutions here. We will begin with you, Mr. Gulbrandsen. STATEMENT OF CARL E. GULBRANDSEN, MANAGING DIREC
TOR, WISCONSIN ALUMNI RESEARCH FOUNDATION, MADI. SON, WISCONSIN
Mr. GULBRANDSEN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before your Subcommittee on the important topic of patent law reform, injunctions and damages. My name is Carl E. Gulbrandsen. I am the Managing Director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, known as WARF. I am making my statement today on behalf of WARF. I am also authorized to state that Research Corporation Technologies of Tucson, Arizona, also known as RCT, supports the stances that are taken in my written and oral statements. RCT Corporation focuses on technology investments with origins from universities and research institutes.
WARF was founded in 1925 and was one of the first organizations to engage in university technology transfer. In March of this year, WARF received the National Medal of Technology, the highest award that can be conferred by the President of the United States on individuals and organizations making lasting contributions to the country's well-being. This award recognized the importance of technology transfer.
The Senate Judiciary Committee played an instrumental role in the drafting of the Bayh-Dole Act and its cardinal principle that the American public benefits from public policy that permits universities and small businesses to elect ownership in innovations made using Federal funds.
For the Bayh-Dole Act to continue to be successful in stimulating further innovations, patents must provide significant disincentives to would-be infringers. If patent law is strong, then technology transfer can flourish, resulting in profound and positive impact on the health, safety and welfare of our country and worldwide. If patent law is weakened, then technology transfer suffers, as do U.S. universities, companies that depend on university research, and the public.
In 1980 when the Bayh-Dole Act passed, approximately 25 U.S. universities had technology transfer offices. No uniform Federal patent policy existed and federally-funded discoveries were rarely patented and commercialized. Today, more than 230 U.S. universities have technology transfer offices, and universities are recipients of approximately 4 percent of U.S. patents issued.
Today's list of university inventions is indeed impressive. The list includes Leustatin, a chemotherapy drug from the Brigham Young University; a lithography system to enable the manufacturing of nano devices from the University of Texas-Austin; and an effective aneurysm treatment from the University of California at Los Angeles.
In the past two decades, intellectual property assets have become vital to the performance of the U.S. economy. Since 1992, the volume of patent applications in the PTO has more than doubled to 400,000 applications annually. In 2005, the PTO issued more patents than it did during the first four decades of American history, although because of recent administrative and fiscal strains, the backlog of patent applications has grown to 500,000 and continues to grow.
In the eyes of many, patent quality has suffered. As a member of Patent Public Advisory Council, I believe that poor-quality patents are the exception rather than the rule, but even the exception should not be tolerated. The first line of defense against poor-quality patents and slow decisionmaking is to provide the PTO with the fiscal resources that it needs to hire and train skilled examiners and implement effective electronic processing capabilities. There is nothing in the current proposals that assist the PTO with these critical steps.
Based on our initial analysis of a plethora of patent reform proposals on the table, WARF is able to express support for some. However, several of the reform proposals represent a step backwards for university patenting and commercialization efforts. Candidly, these proposals can be described as anti-patent under the label of litigation reform. Many of them fall into the category of diminishing enforcement rights and remedies of patent-holders and have little bearing on improving patent quality. I believe that their passage would thwart the tremendous success that universities have experienced in innovation. Economic development, small businesses and jobs could be jeopardized in every State in the Union.
WARF therefore objects to four provisions currently being discussed. First, with respect to injunctive relief, current proposals tilt the playing field in favor of infringers. Currently, a presumption in favor of injunctive relief is built into our patent process. This is for good reason. Injunctions respect the constitutional right of patent owners to exclude others from using his or her patented invention.
Second, WARF opposes the expansion of prior user rights. Expanded prior user rights would encourage innovations to be kept as trade secrets, a practice which is contrary to the fundamental premise of the U.S. patent system which rewards and encourages disclosures.
Third, WARF opposes limiting continuation practice and believes such a change in the law would negatively impact universities unless changes were specifically tailored to address abusive practices.
Fourth, the adoption of a first to file system that is intended to bring us closer to the rest of the world disadvantages the vast majority of universities and independent inventors. If we must harmonize to the world's patent laws, my written statement makes suggestions that should be incorporated in any harmonizing patent legislation in order to protect universities and independent inventors.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership, time and attention. If there are any questions, I would be pleased to answer them.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gulbrandsen appears as a submission for the record.]
Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Gulbrandsen.
Mr. Band. STATEMENT OF JONATHAN BAND ON BEHALF OF VISA U.S.A.
AND THE FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. BAND. Chairman Hatch, Ranking Member Leahy and Senator Kennedy, I am pleased to testify today on behalf of Visa U.S.A. and the Financial Services Roundtable.
The financial services community is intensely interested in patent quality and litigation issues, and is grateful that you are considering these matters. Since the subject of today's hearing is injunctions and damages, I will focus my testimony on these topics. However, our views on remedies can be understood only against the background of the serious patent quality problem.
Regardless of which features contribute to a lack of patent quality, businesses of all shapes and sizes, including financial institutions, are threatened by a large and growing number of frivolous claims of patent infringement. Claims of infringement are a serious problem already, but they are only the tip of the iceberg because of the time lag and the issuance of patents related to business methods.
Since the State Street Bank decision in 1998, the number of patent applications involving financial services has surged. Because it typically takes more than 3 years to obtain a business method patent, the risk of increased litigation for financial services has now arrived.
While the Patent Act's provisions concerning remedies would need adjustment even if the Patent Office granted only valid patents, the patent quality problem makes the need for litigation reform all the more compelling. The possibility of a broad injunction and treble damages means that a financial services institution must take even the most frivolous patent infringement claim seriously.
The current rules regarding injunctions and damages place all the leverage in the hands of the patent owner even if the patent is extremely weak. Because the systems for processing credit cards or checks are large, complex and undifferentiated, an injunction on one small part of the system can shut down the entire system. If Congress does not correct the remedies under the patent law, the surge in the number of patents relating to financial services will lead to financial services institutions paying out ever larger license fees to holders of suspect patents, to the detriment of our customers.
There are steps Congress can and should take to provide financial firms and other businesses with safeguards against these frivolous claims without impairing the important protections afforded under the patent law. Specifically, Congress should modify the standards for injunctive relief and clarify the damage rules with respect to willfulness and apportionment.
In most cases, the prevailing plaintiff bears the burden of showing that it is entitled to injunctive relief because money damages are insufficient. In patent cases, however, if the patent owner shows that the patent is valid and infringed, the court presumes that the patent owner is irreparably harmed by the infringement. In theory, the defendant has the opportunity to rebut this presumption, but as a practical matter courts treat the presumption as virtually irrebuttable.
The threat of a permanent injunction, even in the absence of any real irreparable harm, significantly increases the risk to the defendant of going to trial to prove invalidity or non-infringement. Accordingly, this presumption forces defendants to settle prematurely even in cases with weak patents held by patent trolls.
The Patent Act should be amended to provide that a court can grant an injunction only if the patentee demonstrates that it is likely to suffer immediate and irreparable harm that cannot be remedied by the payment of money damages alone. The House IP Subcommittee's Committee print contains such language. Unfortunately, the bill actually introduced, H.R. 2795, does not go as far as the Committee print in this respect. It implies that the defendant bears the burden concerning irreparable harm, rather than the plaintiff. Still, the language in H.R. 2795 is an improvement over the status quo because it makes clear that the presumption of irreparable harm is rebuttable.
The patent law should also be modified to provide that a court can treble the damages only if the infringer engaged in egregious conduct, such as deliberately copying the patented subject matter with knowledge that it was patented. The Patent Act should make clear that treble damages should not be available if the infringer had a good-faith belief that the patent was invalid or unenforceable. H.R. 2795 contains provisions along these lines concerning willful infringement.
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text:
All things perfect and poisonous
Notions of cinema.
Everyone knows the story. Aron Ralston was hiking when he is pinned by a falling boulder and cut off his own arm to escape. But how would one make a film about an ordeal that everyone already knows how it ends? This story poses some serious challenges for a feature length film as it is asking an audience to be trapped in a canyon with Ralston as he ponders his predicament, for 5 days, until he finally decides to cut his way free. One could decide to approach it as a horror film, using the viewer's dread and claustrophobia to build to the final gruesome scenes when cutting occurs. It could also explore the territory of so many other man versus nature films, and use Ralston's days of isolation for internal exploration. So it was a bit of a surprise that filmmaker, Danny Boyle, decided to conquer this project as his films are about as far from inters pective as it gets and it is hard to imagine him attracted to a project that puts it's sole character beneath a rock for it's duration. Boyle, who never fails to be flamboyantly entertaining, fed my curiosity as to how he would handle Aron Ralson's well publicized story.
127 Hours is a highly watchable film; Boyle takes this ordeal and makes it downright entertaining. He uses plenty of flashy shots, split frames, and rock music keeping the film loud and visually interesting within the limits of setting. Unlike another of this year's releases, Buried, the camera work keeps the audience from feeling at all trapped with pans out of the crevice, opening to wide shots of the surrounding desert and clear blue sky. 127 Hours has none of the intense fear and claustrophobia that made Buried such a challenge to endure. 127 Hours maintains a spirit of adventure instead of delving into questions of morality or man's place in nature. If this film has a message, it is simply to leave a note before going on an excursion into the wilderness.
What this film really understands about Aron Ralston's story is the kind of man he is. Aron Ralston (James Franco), like many rock climbers, treats nature with a spirit of conquest. He sets out to complete hikes faster than anyone before, to try new climbs, and while experienced, it is his cockiness that gets him into trouble, but also makes him appealing. This is perfectly illustrated during the opening of the film, when he prepares for his Saturday expedition and meets two female hikers on the trail. He offers to guide them and leads them through a climb and to an underground lake. All along this adventure, he photographs and takes videos to document these accomplishments.
It isn't until Aron's new friends depart and he hikes further into the desert canyon that he is suddenly pinned by a falling boulder and the film's title finally appears. The tone shifts and becomes more serious, but maintains levity due to Ralston's constant documentation of his predicament. At one point, he even interviews himself about his dire situation, asking if he was actually stupid enough to not tell anyone where he was going. But James Franco as Aron appears calm and rational throughout his entrapment, carefully taking stock of his limited supplies including a small amount of water, camelback, head-lamp, rope, and a woefully inadequate multi-purpose tool, with a tiny knife. He spends his time trying to chip away at the boulder with the dull knife, while hallucinating and thinking of his family and lost loves. These sequences that depict moments of grief or regret seem overshadowed by his generally upbeat nature. And none of these sequences give relief from the tension. As time passes, one cannot help but to know that soon, he will have to cut himself free and climb out of the desert, keeping the tension on edge, waiting for Ralston's dreaded method of escape.
It took about an hour for Aron to cut off his arm, just above the wrist, but thankfully, it occupies no more than 2-3 minutes of screen time. However, they are graphic and intense minutes. After, listening to Aron Ralston's account of how he severed his own limb, 127 Hours succeeds in communicating exactly how it was done using mostly sound effects and sparing the more graphic visual details. This resulted in the most graphic moments of the film being watchable. After this seemingly agonizingly long scene, his hike to safety and film's conclusion is brief. The overall result is an enjoyable film, one skillfully acted and directed, but ultimately an empty experience with little below the surface. But it succedes in capturing the mindset of an adventure seeking man who had what it took to survive this brush with death, but based on the character developed in this film, he might not survive his next accident and there will probably be others.
Labels: 127 hours
My attempt at Filmspotting's Top 5 List
I just finished listening to Filmspotting podcast, episode #296, and I've been inspired to begin a small project. My concept of great cinema has changed now that I live in a place with so many choices. When I lived in Anchorage, I primarily saw movies at the local Art House, Capri Cinema. Rand, being an out gay man, tended to show a lot of GLBT cinema as well as the better known independent/art house films. The years I lived in Columbia, I watched more mainstream film and really, just about everything that came to town that sounded at all interesting. But in Seattle, the choices are overwhelming by comparison. Sometimes I'll see a classic film, or a film with a lot of buzz, and there are a lot of foreign language films, because of the wide variety of cinema I have access to, I am now a very devoted fan of Asian cinema. The filmmakers in Hong Kong, Korea, China, Japan, Thailand are incredible. And this isn't at all limited to the genre films that have made Asian film
Horror?
From Blogger I apparently have no clue what a horror movie is. Or at least, when the challenge rolls around and I take the leap and attempt to watch 31 horror movies, I suddenly feel as if I have no idea what that means. There are times when it is obvious that a movie is horror; Friday the 13th, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre . Once I dive into the challenge, I begin to question whether the movies I'm seeing really count. This year, I've seen Buried, Carrie, Clean, Shaven, Nosferatu (1922), Scanners, Sisters , and I sell the Dead . Nate protested Sisters, saying DePalma's movie about a pair of disturbed Siamese twins isn't a horror movie. And he has a point, but how is one supposed to choose movies without having seen them before to really know whether they are horror? Especially since I'm only using the challenge to catch up on movies that I should see because they are classics and to re-watch a few others that need to be revisited. But picking the
Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls...
Where does one begin? Peaches Does Herself is a German concert movie of Peaches. Written by, Directed by and starring Peaches. But how does one describe this experience? Normally, I skip the Face the Music program of films at SIFF each year, but Peaches Does Herself was described as the queerest film in the festival. As it turns out, I knew exactly one Peaches song prior and still know little to nothing about her, but it didn't matter. I enjoyed the music and most of all, I loved her persona. Her sexuality was on display and was not only unapologetic, but read as loud as if it were a billboard with "fuck normalcy and judgement, this is who I am" in bright pink neon. To give an overall impression of the film, I've decided just to lay out what happens along with stills. I suspect that is the best I can do for readers to decide whether this is something they should seek out. The film begins in Peaches' bedroom and after the dancers climb through a giant vu
Now that I've escaped the laboratory, I'm generally lacking any sense of purpose. But as all of life's meanings can be found at the movies, I'll start my search there.
Araki's New Queer Cinema
A Friend of Mine
A World without Thieves
Adams Apples
Aronofsky
Beowulf and Grendel
Best if the aughts
Best of the aughts
Brand Upon the Brain
C'est la Femme
Cheyenne Picardo
Children of the Corn
City on Fire
Clean Shaven
CoCo Before Chanel
Daytime Drinking
Dead Man's Shoes
Dear Pyongyang
Dennis Nyback
Dot the I
Eve and the Firehorse
Fantastic Parasuicides
Fear Me Not
Four Boxes
Ganja and Hess
geography of a scene
Godzilla Final Wars
Grand Illusion Cinema
Gregg Araki
HK Cinema
Hurt Locker
I Know You Know
Icelandic Phallological Museum
In My Father's Den
In Their Room London
intensified continuity
Kept and Dreamless
King of Kong
Kirby Dick
Kiss of the Damned
Lair of the White Worm
Letting Go of God
Linda Linda Linda
Lonesome Jim
Manhole Children
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Merry Gentleman
Mirageman
Missing In America
Monster Camp
Mother of Tears
Nurse.Fighter.Boy
OHMC
Paul Deeb
Peaches Does Herself
Pierrepoint
Poppy Shakespeare
Power of Nightmares
Red Road
SEAF2013
Seattle Erotic Film Festival 2013
SIFF2005
Ski Jump Pairs
Spark: A Burning Man Story
Starfish Hotel
Tamara Sholl
Th Bunker
The Aerial
The Brood
The Clone Returns Home
The Comedy of Terrors
The Corpse Bride
The deadly spawn
The Devil Came on Horseback
the dying gaul
The Dying Gual
The Edukators
The Eyes of Edward James
The Human Scale
the legend of the 7 golden vampires
The Man Who Cheated Himself
The Movie Orgy
The people who own the night
The Punk Singer
The Wackness
The Writer of O
This Film is Not Rated
Three Extremes
Three Times
Vanishing on 7th street
Visioneers
we live in public
White Bird in a Blizzard
Wristcutters
XXY
Year of Grace

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Man in the Box Chapters 3 & 4
Vol 1, No 3: A Little Coup D'état
He survived the walk of shame through the office.No one made eye contact with him. It was as though he were a leper making his way through the village and no one wanted to risk being ostracized for acknowledging him.
Robby was about to plop his box down in the backseat of his car when his phone rang. He glanced at it and saw that it was Don.
"Yeah?" he said, bringing the phone to his ear.
"Meet me at Mad Betty's," came Don's frantic voice, followed by heavy breathing.
"Did you just run a three-yard marathon?" Robby asked.
"Just come over here. Now. Park in the back."
Robby drove across the street to the local bar and pub. He pulled around back as instructed and parked next to Don's Kia Soul.
Inside, he found Don waving at him from a corner booth dimly lit by a hanging green light. Through the jukebox in the back, Elvis crooned about suspicious minds. The lingering smoke made him long for a drink and a cigarette.
The father of a local cop owned the place and allowed his customers, who were mostly cops, to smoke inside. It kept business steady. No harm in driving the non-smokers to nearby competitors. Everyone was happy; no one was reported, and no one cared.
"What's up?" asked Robby, taking a seat across from Don.
"I've got something big," Don said, still breathing hard. Robby would learn in just a minute that his friend's laborious breathing wasn't due to anything physical—it was because of nerves. "I was cleaning out the hard drive on my computer, and you won't believe what I found."
"A résumé? Gay porn?"
Don ignored this and held up a small, white, sticky paper with two things written on it. "I found Kurt's passwords and sign-in names to our system."
Robby scrunched up his face and rubbed his wrists with his hands as though they were suddenly sore.
"The best I can figure—What? What's wrong with your wrists?"
"Oh, nothing. I was just doing my imitation of you in the future, complaining about those handcuff burns."
Don slammed his fist on the sticky glass-top table, jarring the saltshaker. "I knewit. I shouldn't have told you," he declared as though he had been debating with himself over the issue for hours.
"How'd you get it?" Robby asked.
"The best I can figure is Kurt was in my office a couple of weeks ago showing me a few things. He signed in with his username, punched in his password, and the computer stored it in the system. If you leave your password in an HTML field, or the browser auto-completes it, the password and username can be retrieved."
Robby looked at him blankly; these words meant nothing to him.
"It's a big, long computer thing—you wouldn't get it. Anyway, after being fired, it was hard to ignore it once I found it. It was lucky, but I got it."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Don't you get it? We have access to his top-dog contacts, his clients, anyone who's anyonein the publishing industry! We use these, we'll have jobs again in no time!"
"Or," added Robby, allowing his words to grow with excitement, "we could start our own company and take CipherMill's clients!"
"Right! Now you're thinking." Don took a gulp of his beer and dug his fingers into a basket of fries, stuffing a handful into his mouth. "So you're in?"
"Fuck no," said Robby. "It's illegal, numb nuts. You don't need a felony charge on your record especially when you're unemployed. Besides, when did you get to be so ballsy?"
Don sighed as though contemplating what to say next. Then he said, "I've only ever worked in the restaurant business, and those places all fired me because I'd eat all their food. Lack of self-control."
"You definitely have that," said Robby, motioning to the sticky paper Don held.
"Come on, man. At least just help me a little? I don't have a shot out there in the real world, and quite frankly, as a guy who's almost forty and who's only edited books his entire career, you don't either. I actually have a leg up on you with some graphic art under my belt."
"So work for a graphic arts company."
"Don't you get it?" asked Don. "I don't want to work for anyone else anymore. Every time we do that, we're at their mercy to do as they please. We both just saw that today right across the street."
Robby had some friends who had tried starting their own businesses and he didn't care to go through the shit they went through only to close up shop a year into their ventures. "Don. I'm not going to do this with you. But just out of curiosity, what do you need me for anyway? Why can't you just go it alone?"
"I can't do anything with this username and password on an outside computer. Crispness is an internal system that's only accessible at work."
"Cipress," Robby corrected.
"Really? Shit, have I been pronouncing it wrong all these years?"
"Just every now and then," Robby lied. In truth, Don was always complaining about their internal system in staff meetings and pronouncing its name wrong. Robby never bothered correcting him because it was just too much fun watching the other guys laugh every time he did it. It made for a good ongoing joke in the office when Don was stuffing his face in the break room. ("Do you enjoy the Crispnessof that cookie?" they'd ask Don as he sunk his teeth into a Chips Ahoy.) Such humor was rare in the workplace, and Robby didn't want to see that go away.
"Damn it," said Don. "Hopefully you're the only one who noticed. Anyway, it isn't universal. It's only on CipherMill's computers. So we'll have to do it from the office."
"Good for you," said Robby. "You'll have to do it alone. Unfortunately I won't be visiting you in jail because I'll be too busy job searching like a normal, law-abiding citizen."
"And end up where, huh? 7-Eleven? You want a bag of Fritos to go with those condoms for just a dollar more?"
Robby scoffed. "I think I can do a little bit better than that, man."
"You spent the last decade as a book editor. Books, Robby. That's a dying industry. It's not like you were a film editor and you can just bounce from one movie studio to the next."
"That's my point. It's going to be hard enough finding a job without a felony charge against us. Want my advice?" Robby ripped the paper out of Don's meaty hand and held it up. "Throw this away. Burn it, roll it into a joint, I don't care. But don't do this."
"This would hurt Kurt," said Don, taking his sticky back.
Kurt's baleful smile returned to Robby. In a split second he thought about how greedy he and his bosses were up in their cozy corner offices, with their sexy assistants and exuberant benefits packages, and their Ferraris parked in their own private parking spots. And a water-colored image splashed in his mind of the corporate suits walking through flames of fire, laughing. They were laughing because, caught in those flames, were the little people who worked for them, trying not to get stepped on by their polished (and, apparently, flame-resistant) leather Italian shoes. And then Kurt's fucking smile returned to him.
With those panther eyes and pointed shoulder blades sticking above his head … in Robby's mind, the panther smiled too. Why was Robby thinking about the panther painting? But still, the look in their eyes was the same. Menacing, terrible, hungry.
Gleeful.
But now that Robby was no longer employed under Kurt, he was in no danger of being hurt by him anymore. Robby had given long hours, many weekends, and even some summer holidays to CipherMill, and they thanked him by giving him the old royal screwing. And suddenly Robby was pissed. He was pissed at Kurt for doing what he did, and he was pissed at himself for not saying what needed to be said to Kurt's face. God, why was he such a coward when it came to speaking up for himself, or putting someone in their place?
What Kurt had done was unfair on so many levels, Robby didn't even know where to begin judging the crimes. If Kurt was going to get his comeuppance, it would be now, by Robby's hand.
"How bad will this hurt him?" Robby asked.
Don blinked at him, unsure if he had just sold Robby on the idea. "You're going to help me?"
Robby leaned in over the table and, looking Don dead in the eyes, repeated, "How bad would this hurt Kurt?"
"Well, uh, if we work it right, we could potentially take most of his clients. Granted, many of those clients are authors looking for a break, but we can still charge them significantly less for looking over their manuscripts and offering professional advice. We could even sell it like, 'Hey, we actually worked at CipherMill, so you'll get the same professional services, only you'll be saving a lot more money in editorial fees.'
"Once we start bringing on clients, we'd split them 50/50. Robby, there're like seven hundred authors and publishers on this list. Many of whom haven't published in a while and are going to be looking to get back in the game. And we can do more than just edit their books. We could find a local printer, I can do some graphic work for the covers, we could be a major competitor for CipherMill … "
As Don rambled on, Robby rolled the idea around in his head. It would take a lot of smart planning and preparation. If they were really going to put together a business model separate from CipherMill's, they'd have to agree on a sales pitch for these potential clients, probably spend days or weeks making cold calls, create a website, purchase an LLC … and then Robby began to have his doubts.
But those doubts were quickly shooed away when he watched a busboy clearing off a table that had just been vacated by some occupants. Except he was more like a busman, no younger than Robby himself. And then the thought of selling Fritos and condoms at a convenient store. Nothing convenient about thatjob. And then those eyes. Those baleful yellow eyes that were (at least in Robby's mind) his boss'.
And that damn smile. That smile he'd like more than anything to smack. And this was certainly a way to do it, if it could really steal business away from Kurt and his bosses upstairs who were just rolling in the dough from all of Robby's hard work. Eventually those royalties would slow down, and somewhere down the line Robby and his pal Don would be the ones raking in the new money from books CipherMill would have had.
Then he thought of the ocean tide, long gone and gated off to him. No surfing next week like he had planned. No suntan lotion, no women in itty-bitty yellow polka-dot bikinis. None of that, because as long as he was employed by someone else, his life was in their hands. They dictated when he could leave work, when he could go on vacation, when he could catch a fucking cold for Christ's sake. These same first-world problems he had experienced at CipherMill would follow him to any job.
And his pal Don here sat across from him with a piece of paper that now seemed to shine like gold. It was his golden ticket, his golden chance to make his way, as the song went.
"I'm in," Robby said, almost more to himself than to Don. "How do we get those contacts?"
"We'll have to do it from downstairs in the warehouse. I'm pretty sure they have the same system we do."
"Crispness."
"But what about getting in? I turned in my badge."
Don smiled and pulled his out of his pocket. "Oops. I forgot to do that."
Robby laughed. "This is insane."
"All we have to do is keep our cars parked out of sight," explained Don. "We'll hang out here for a while until the warehouse workers leave, sneak in, pull up the information, print it out, and leave. One of us will just have to stand guard while the other goes in."
Robby was getting giddy like he was a schoolboy again going on some grand made-up adventure. "But who gets to stand guard?"
"I'll flip you for it," said Don. And the deal was sealed. Robby was in.
Vol 1, No 4: The Box
After taking the day for themselves the two conspirators met back up at the bar, parking in the back like they had agreed. The workday had ended and the last of the CipherMill employees should have been gone for the day. The main lobby would still be open because of the other two companies that shared a lease on the building.
"Can we flip again?" asked Don as they strode up to the front doors of the lobby.
"Hell no. This was your idea anyway. The penny decided I get to stand guard. As compensation, I let you keep the penny, and as an unemployed man, that, my friend, was pretty generous of me."
They lowered their voices as they walked past the young security guard's desk, avoiding eye contact. Neither of them noticed that the kid was too immersed in his phone to care who they were or what they were doing. He saw dozens of employees pass through each hour without so much as a second glance. They couldn't get into any door without a badge anyway. The hope, of course, was that Don's badge wasn't deactivated just yet.
"And you'll text me if anyone comes around?" Don asked quietly.
"Yes. I will text you the words ABORT MISSION," said Robby.
"This isn't funny, man," said Don. "We agreed you would text the words DID YOU FIND THE DONUTS. You'll have that already typed out, right? So you just need to press send if you see anyone coming."
"This is getting really stupid," mumbled Robby under his breath.
"I said your precautions are completely necessary, because I'm sure someone is going to insist on reading the text messages on your phone to make sure I asked you about donuts instead of saying anything about aborting a mission," said Robby sarcastically as they neared the door to the warehouse at the end of the hall. "Why are you so scared all of a sudden? You were the one all gung-ho about this before."
"Because it's really happening and I was hoping you'd talk me out of this rather than go along with it."
"What can I say? You charmed me with your sexy sales pitch." Robby batted his eyes at Don and said, "I have a sweet spot for big boys like you." He put his arm over Don's big shoulders to pull him in for a side hug, but Don pushed him away. "Seriously though, we can use those skills for our publishing company. We'll even call it Crispness if you'd like."
"Don't make me fire you already," warned Don.
Robby laughed. "You got the username and password, right?"
"Right here," he held up the sticky paper.
They reached the door and Don swiped his badge. When the lock clicked, they looked at each other and Robby nodded. Don returned the nod and pushed the door open. When he stepped in, the sensor lights flashed on and the door was shut behind him.
Robby chuckled at his dumb friend as he leaned back against a wall, hands in his pockets. It wouldn't take Don more than a couple of minutes to power up the computer, sign in with Kurt's credentials, pull up the contacts, then print them out in a single document.
While he waited, Robby thought about how he and Don would go about starting a business together. The thought terrified him because being business owners didn't fall into their areas of expertise. Once they poached some clients from CipherMill, they would have to make good on their promises to be a better publisher than any of their established and seasoned competitors. They would also have to learn to juggle meeting the clients' needs and meeting their own financial needs. Didn't it take three to five years before any startup business turned a profit? Suddenly, Robby started wondering if he was doing the right thing. Not that he felt any remorse about stealing from his former employer, God no. But was this the right life decision for him and the family? Was it financially smart on any level?
After a few minutes of waiting, and no one in the hall to report, Robby texted Don asking if everything was all right. He heard Don's phone chirp from behind the door. Dumbass forgot to turn his volume down; if this little business idea didn't work, Robby would have to tell Don not to consider any career in espionage.
He waited a few more minutes before texting him again. Then he texted that he wanted to go home now. He heard the ding on the other side of the door again, but still there was no response.
Now Robby was getting agitated. He pushed on the door, but couldn't get in without his badge. He knocked, and when there was no answer, he began to wonder if Don was all right. Had he finally had his inevitable heart attack? Robby recalled how many frosted donuts Don had piled on his little red plastic plate that morning. Had his arteries finally clogged? Had he kicked the bucket? If Robby could go in there, would he really want to?
He decided to call him this time, before he called 911. He heard the loud ringing coming from inside the warehouse. He was about to hang up when he noticed the phone disconnected before it reached voicemail, which meant Don had dismissed the call.
"Don? You all right in there?" Robby asked, knocking on the heavy wooden door.
Don's voice from inside sounded confused and dazed. "Uh, yeah. Yup! I think so, okay?"
Holy shit, Robby thought. He's having a stroke!
"Well come on out," he instructed Don. "It doesn't matter if you don't get the papers. Just come on out, buddy."
There was a pause, then the door opened as Robby was dialing 911. Don looked weary, like he had just woken up from a coma. "What happened, man?" Robby asked. "You all right? You need to go to the hospital?"
Don shook his head. His eyes wouldn't focus on anything; it was like he was coming out of a trance, and Robby felt, deep in the pit of his gut, that something was very, very wrong.
But Don wasn't having a stroke. Robby had been with his grandfather during his stroke, and with his dad during his. He knew what a stroke looked like—the sagging skin, the slurred speech—and this was not it. This was more like Don had seen a ghost. His mouth was agape and his skin was slightly paler than it was just a few minutes ago.
Robby poked his head around Don's shoulder to peek inside the fluorescent-lit warehouse. Nothing was unusual about the place, and there were no ghosts. Instead, there were metal tables with stationery neatly organized for the next day. Cardboard boxes lined the shelves above, and there was no clutter on the walkways that ran adjacent to the conveyer belts. If Robby were a warehouse inspector, or an OSHA agent, he would have declared the place safe and operable. He then looked at Don and realized he didn't have the papers.
"Dude, what'd you do in there?" Robby asked. "Did the sign-in stuff not work?"
Eyes still wide, Don brushed past Robby and walked down the hall toward the exit. Robby was about to chase after him, but instead, he jammed his foot in the doorway before it could close. If he removed his foot, the door would lock him out, and he needed to get inside because he was going to have to print the list out himself. He could deal with Don later.
But before he went inside he heard Don say to himself, "It's real. All of it. It's real."
"What's real, buddy?" Robby asked, but Don was paying no attention to him; he was already halfway down the hallway.
Frustrated, Robby pushed the door open and went inside. He ran across the large warehouse to where the computer was. He hurried to push the mouse before the screensaver came up. He looked around on the screen and saw that Don had already signed in under Kurt's username and had pulled up the contacts. So why in the hell didn't he print the damn thing out?
Robby kicked aside a large empty cardboard box in order to position himself better in front of the computer. He shuffled his foot as he navigated the cursor to the print option, and as he did so, a sensation came over his entire body, like he was momentarily somewhere else, somewhere better. He couldn't tell where, and he didn't see anything differently; it was like his mind blindly flashed to a happier, more serene place.
He looked around and wondered where that had come from. An electrical wave, probably. Whatever that was.
The computer was agonizingly slow. As he waited for the printer to kick in, he scrolled down the list of contacts. As Don had promised, the list was several hundred long, and he could almost hear coins dropping from a slot machine somewhere in the back of his mind. He looked over and saw that the printer was more than a decade old. Finally it lit up and started to whir and hum. It occurred to Robby that he could have just emailed the file to himself, except he didn't want to leave any trace behind; any evidence that he had been on the computer.
As he waited, Robby took a small step back. As his foot touched the empty box by his side, his body did that thing again, where his mind was in another world for a split second. A split second that seemed to last forever.
What the hell was going on here?
Making the connection, Robby examined the box. It was just an ordinary refrigerator box, fully assembled, laying on its side with the opening facing up. There were no labels or stickers to mark the box except for a red arrow pointing up and three words printed in black on its side: THIS SIDE IN.
Didn't boxes usually read THIS SIDE UP?
He reached down and toward the box to touch it. If there was a camera focusing on his hand, it would have been the stuff of movies, given how slowly his hand was moving. The only thing missing was the suspenseful crescendo of the orchestra rising in the background.
His fingers brushed the top of the box where the side dipped down. It felt like a regular cardboard box, nothing fancy, nothing special. At least that's what his fingers felt. But his mind—his mind felt something different. It felt … fuzzy. Or rather, free.
No concrete thoughts or images came into his head or passed by his mind's eye. He just knew his brain was somewhere else and he wanted to be there with it.
He pulled his hand back reluctantly and walked around the box. Could this be what had happened to Don? Did he have the same encounter with this box as Robby was having now?
The third page slowly leaked out of the printer; there were twenty-three pages left, so he was going to be here a while. He walked around the box again. He imagined Don crawling inside the box, actually getting inside it, and sitting in it, waiting for something extraordinary to happen. The thought of this absurd behavior made him chuckle. Of course that was something Don would do, always beating his own drum and then just kind of slouching off of the parade route to his own corner of the world.
But somehow, in this case, he understood. If Don had felt that same sensation he had when he touched the box, well, why not touch as much of it as possible? One hit of a joint was never enough—you were either all in or all out. He laughed again as he thought of Don getting all in in the box.
THIS SIDE IN
But in what? The box?
He made like his fingers accidentally brushed the box with a swoop of his hand, and the feeling hit him again. It felt like his mind became bigger than his body, like for once his mind was in control instead of the other way around. Talk about mind over matter.
The more he studied the box, the more he felt like it was beckoning to him. Like a hoop waiting for the ball to swoosh through. Or (could it be, but he just didn't want to admit it?) like a grave about to entomb a casket.
At first he felt childish for entertaining the idea. After all, he hadn't been inside a box since he was a kid. But then, it was that childish side of him that was being pulled. He could have walked away and probably never given it a second thought again in his life. But the child inside him screamed. GET IN! GET IN, ROBBY! GET IN!
The printer still had twenty pages left to digest. He had no work to do upstairs in the office. Besides, it wasn't like anyone was watching. He'd get in, the voice inside would shut up, and he'd get back out. In the end, it would be a non-issue, nothing even worth remembering. Then he'd grab the papers and leave.
Out of sight, out of mind.
He placed a foot inside the box. And as he did so, he had to grab onto the sides to haul his other foot in. He noticed that he didn't feel that sensation, which kind of disappointed him. He stood inside the box for a minute, not sure what to do, and praying no one would walk in on him.
Then he thought of Don lying inside the box so that his whole body could be touching it. So he did just that. He squatted down on his butt and laid his back against the width of the box. Nothing happened.
He exhaled and closed his eyes.
Instantly Robby felt overheated and closed in. He opened his eyes, or at least he thought he did, but saw nothing. He blinked, and blinked again, and still he only saw the deepest blackness. His breathing was short; his lungs felt like balloons being squeezed almost to the point of popping.
He brought his hand up to his face only to splash muddy water all over himself. He dropped his hand back down and felt that he was indeed sitting in a puddle of sludgy mud, his knees brought up to his chest. He was relieved to find that he could stretch his legs out, but when he reached out to either side of him, his fingers met with a damp dirt wall, which arched above his head, low enough that he couldn't sit all the way up.
For a moment he panicked, realizing he had been buried alive, but then he thought about the water—it had to be coming from somewhere, right?
He dipped his fingertips back into the mud to see if he could detect a current, and as he did this, two things happened. One, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness and he could see that there was a tunnel at his feet he could crawl through. And two, a ghastly screech made its way through the tunnel. His first thought was that someone, or something, was being attacked. Without giving much thought to his own safety (and really wanting out of this tight hole so he could breathe again), he unraveled his body so that he could army crawl through the tunnel toward the sound.
With the mud coming up to his elbows, his entire underside was soaking wet now. The water was warm, like the air, which smelled like dusty antiques—old and stale. It was a disgusting smell, but that was the least of his concerns.
The screech echoed through the tunnel again, causing Robby to crawl faster. Rocks and pebbles pressed mercilessly into his arms and pants, despite him having a suit on. His elbows kept pinning down his tie, which kept jerking his neck down, but he didn't have the time—or the room, really—to sit up and take it off.
Finally, after about ten yards of crawling, he reached the end of the tunnel and was able to stand up. He found himself in a large cavern where the water had not yet turned to mud. Instead, crystal-blue phosphorescent water tickled his ankles and cast a wavy aqua tint on the damp, rugged walls surrounding him. A ray of light shone through an opening at the other end of the cavern. His way out.
But first, the sound.
He walked around a large spire that jutted up from the ground and found a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Up against a far wall was a little girl on her knees, her back to him, raising and lowering a sharp stone in her hand. She was beating something with it—every time she brought the stone down, the screeching bellowed and echoed throughout the cave.
Robby took a few steps away from the spire and saw the legs of an animal in front of the girl. The back legs jerked upward and the ear-piercing screech emanated when the girl brought the stone down again on its head.
"Stop!" Robby screamed, unwilling to let the animal take any more.
The girl turned on Robby, scowling, and baring her teeth like a wolf. The blue light cloaked her blood-splattered face. She looked like she was eight or nine. She had long, dark, frizzy hair that was pushed up in a ponytail by a scrunchie. Then, without so much as a warning, the girl hissed at him like a fierce cat doped up on steroids.
Not expecting this, Robby took a couple steps back. But he thought he saw a momentary relaxation in her face when she looked at him, but only for a second. The girl, dressed in a white T-shirt with a rainbow drawn with puffy paint, and neon pink shorts, pushed herself up to her feet, turned, and charged at Robby, clutching the stone like she had only one fatal throw in her.
She hurled it at Robby, but he moved aside quickly enough for it to bounce violently on the cave wall behind him. But her weak shot didn't deter her. She reached into the blue fanny pack she had buckled to her waist and pulled out another stone. She charged at Robby, her bare feet disappearing in white splashes of water.
He was able to evade her, and in doing so, he ran up to the wounded ball of fur that lay motionless in the water. To his amazement, it wasn't a raccoon or a rodent like he had suspected—it was a little dog. Of course, he couldn't tell by the face, as smashed in and bloody as it was, but the body suggested nothing less. Its gray stump of a tail pointed downward, lifeless; its white paws crossed one over the other; and the dog's nose was partially out of the water. And by the up-down motion of his ribs, it was clear that he was breathing.
My God, he was breathing, after all he'd just endured!
Robby bent to pick the small dog up, but the girl's voice stopped him. "Leave him alone!"
"Why are you hurting him?" Robby demanded, his voice carrying through the cavern and landing in multiple places around them.
The girl's back was to the wall where her stone had hit, and for a moment Robby wished he had a stone of his own. The dog whimpered when Robby dug his fingers under its frail body.
"I said … leave him alone!"
"No! He needs help!" Robby said stubbornly, and then added, "And so do you. You're a troubled little girl."
This seemed to set the girl off all over again. She pushed herself from the wall and charged at him, snarling. Robby had only enough time to pick the dog up in his arms, dripping blood everywhere, and run toward the mouth of the cave. He stopped at the edge only to be met by a sheer hundred-foot drop into a body of water below.
The savage caught up to them, grabbed the dog's hind leg, and began pulling on him, causing him to scream in agony. The two circled around, pulling on the poor dog, until Robby gave one final jerk that pulled the dog's leg out of her hands and sent the girl stumbling backward. She didn't have enough time to catch her footing, and before Robby could catch her, she disappeared over the cliff.
"Shit," Robby said, his heart stopping. He hadn't meant to killthe little bitch. He looked over just in time to see her little body hit the surface of the water and be submerged. He quickly scanned the cave for another way out, but he could only see the little tunnel he had just crawled out from.
"Okay, buddy," Robby said to the dog. "Do you have it in you to make it? If I save her, I won't let her hurt you." He knew it was stupid to jump with the dog, wounded as he was, but the alternative was to leave him up here all alone to starve or bleed to death.
Before he could change his mind, Robby jumped off the cliff feet first with the dog in his arms. As they sailed through the air, the dog tensed in his arms. Before he knew it, they were submerged under lukewarm water. Robby's body spiraled out of control as he plunged to the depths, his limbs being torn apart in all directions, the dog no longer in his hold. He choked on the water splashing down his throat. When at last the water subsided and gave him back control of his body, he opened his eyes to determine where he needed to swim for air. He spotted the light of the sun above the water and swam toward it.
When his head broke through the water he gulped in a huge breath of air, satisfying his lungs to no end. As he breathed in, he frantically looked around for the girl and the dog, neither of whom he could find.
Maybe it was best for the dog, being out of his misery and all. But the girl … he hadn't meant to kill her, damn it. He took a deep breath and plunged his head under to see if he could find her, but all he saw was an empty abyss.
Suddenly he felt himself get pulled under, with no air in his lungs. He looked down and saw that the girl had grabbed onto his leg, and with inhuman strength, was holding him under. He tried to swim upward for a taste of that life-giving air, but his head was spinning and his vision was clouding already. He clawed desperately at the water with his hands, but now it seemed he really wouldn't reach the surface.
Out of a sheer act of desperation, he pulled his captive leg upward, and swung his free foot as hard as he could right in the girl's stomach. She let go, and the last he saw of her before breaking back through the surface was her starfish body sinking down into the black abyss below.
Filed under books Tagged with books, family, fantasy, fiction, reading
The Oscars Formula Cracked!
Want good odds on winning your Oscar bets next year and going forward? Then read on:
Every year it's the same thing. I tell my wife, "Hey, the Oscars are on."
"Want to watch?"
"What time does it start?" she asks.
"Seven."
I have to pull up the channel guide online to find what channel ABC is on.
At 7:07 I say, "Damn. It doesn't actually start at 7. They're showing off their ugly dresses for the next hour."
So for the next 90 minutes we point and laugh at everyone who looks like they're dress up to be in Suzanne Collins' fictitious Capitol.
If we make it through the opening number (Chris Rock sucked, Kimmel was okay; please bring back Billy or Neil!) I then end up just following the show on Twitter and Facebook seeing what everyone else says about it. (If you want to follow a hilarious and agreeable commentator, check out @JonAcuff.)
Then I look through all the past winners and losers. And last night I came to a rather mathematical solution on how the Oscars work. Granted, it's not foolproof, but I think it's just enough to help us all predict the winners from here on out.
Fact: No super hero movie is ever to be nominated for Best Picture. And I think most people agree that this unspoken rule cheated The Dark Knight out of a possible win.
Secondly, no matter what other category the films nominated for Best Picture are, there is a hierarchy that can almost always guarantee a correct prediction.
If a war movie is nominated, it can most assuredly take the Oscar home over its contenders. Unless any of its competitors is a movie about the arts or deals with racism. (In 2008 The Hurt Locker won because its competitors did not deal with racism or was not about the arts.)
So: If a war movie is pitted against a movie about art, the art movie will win. If an art movie is pitted against a film about racism, the racism movie will win. Don't believe me? I'll show you:
89th: Hacksaw Ridge < La La Land < Moonlight
88th: Bridge of Spies < Spotlight (there were no movies nominated about race this year)
87th: American Sniper < Birdman (again, no movies nominated about race)
86th: 12 Years a Slave (There were no films about art or war nominated this year)
Now this theory is not at all airtight. Argo won over Lincoln and Django Unchained, and the year before that The Artist beat The Help (which also beat War Horse), so there are exceptions. Or it could be argued that this is a relatively new pattern the Academy is setting, though no one can forget (or forgive) Shakespeare in Love robbing Saving Private Ryan in 1998 (again: war > art).
So what do you think of my theory? Have there been other patterns in the past? Perhaps each decade or generation follows a list of new rules? Are all best picture winners just based off of the social temperature of the time? Do movies that really deserve best picture wins get overlooked every year? What constitutes a movie being worthy of the honor? And why can't they bring back Billy Crystal or Neil Patrick Harris to host the awards indefinitely?
Share your thoughts below!
Filed under Movies Tagged with family, movies
Happy Birthday, Kat!
My favorite little girl on the planet turns three today.
She can drive me up a wall at times, and I've had my share of losing my cool, but she knows that she's daddy's most prized possession.
We drove two hours north to IKEA yesterday to pick up a kitchen set for her birthday. (In fact, as I write this, I'm sitting on the living room couch, listening to her and her brother waking up in their room. In just a couple of moments, she's going to totter out here and stumbled upon the kitchen set I have set up for her by our living room windows.)
She has no idea what's in the big box I purchased for her, because at IKEA, you never know what you're really getting.
We'll be having donuts for breakfast from our favorite bakery down the street. It's going to be good morning. But really, it's been a good three years. A lot of bad things happened last year, and the waters have been rough for quite a while, but my daughter has always been a constant. It's guaranteed that she'll laugh if I tickle her in just the right spot, and that she'll always want me to kiss her goodnight even if we've had a bad day.
She loves the things I obsess over (chips and salsa, ice cream, Toy Story), and her dancing always makes me laugh, even if life seems too much at times.
I never really knew what it was like to be proud until we brought her home from the hospital, and now I get to experience that feeling every day as I watch her grow, learn, speak, and sing, and discover who she is a little more each day.
I can hear her brother trying to coax her out of their room. I better get the light on…
Filed under Family Tagged with birthday, family, parenting
Why We Don't Tell Our Kids They Can be Anything They Want
It's preached everywhere: "Believe, and it will happen."
"Trust and you will find."
"Try and you will succeed."
"You can be anything you want to be and more."
Once you get to a certain age you realize that's all crap. Because, you know, when I was little, I believed I'd be an astronaut and go to the moon (there have only been twelve manned moon landings since 1969). I also wanted to be a cartoonist for a newspaper strip, but that was before I learned that Jim Davis already had the market cornered in that department.
The problem with me, then? Well, I believe there were two issues.
My expectations were unrealistic. I hate science and always have, so any chance of me becoming an astronaut were doomed to begin with. And, even after some art classes, my cartoons were mediocre at best.
I wasn't consistent. I bounced around from one cool potential career to the next, whichever sounded most appealing at the time. Usually I was inspired by pop culture, and never really tapped into what I – little Andy – really wanted to do with my life.
Now that I'm a dad, I'm careful not to tell my kids they can be anything they want to be when they grow up, because let's be honest: My daughter is too tall to be an Olympic gymnast. My son is too sensitive to be a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys, and so far his hand-eye coordination is as great as his dad's – never mind hitting the broadside of a barn, we're lucky just to make the ball past the fence.
I love the movie Wreck-It Ralph. Ralph didn't want to be a bad guy anymore, and no matter how many medals he won or good deeds he performed, he was always going to be a bad guy. But he learned to make peace with it.
An even better one is the bold Monsters University, where young Mike wants to be a scarer, but he really just sucks at it. He's small, puny, and pretty funny looking.
No, as much as I would like to change things, our kids cannot be anything they want to be. It's just not realistic, and beyond that, it's a lie.
That's not to say that if they worked and studied hard enough that they can't become doctors and lawyers, business owners and CEO's, or any other profession that requires a large degree of panache and brains. And as their parents, we'll support them in every way.
But if my son dreams of making it on Juggling with the Stars in sixteen years but he can't juggle any more than his daily chores, then I'm going to be flat-out honest with him and suggest that maybe he could coach someone to juggle or something.
But whatever they set their mind to, it is my hope that not only is it achievable within their skill set, but that they stick with it and don't give up.
Filed under Family Tagged with family, inspiration, parenting
Let's Resolve for a Better 2018 (Yes, 2018)
I think I know why New Year's resolutions don't work.
It's because we expect change to be immediate.Like, we plan to lose thirty pounds next year. That's great, but we're just now coming out of a candy-crusted, cookie-frosted, eggnog-chugging month.
Guys. We can't go from heavy creamed-based mashed potatoes to carrot juice and Power bars over night. Seriously.
And yet, year after year, we think it can be done.
Or what about people who are like, I'm going to make a million dollars next year! That's fine and great, and I applaud your spirit, but you made that vow last year aaaaaaannnd… here you are sitting at your same computer reading this same blog about to make the same promise, which will eventually lead you to this exact same spot exactly one year from now.
But what if.
What if, instead of making our traditional New Year's resolutions for 2017, we instead resolve to prepare for a better 2018?
Stay with me here.
I think about 3/4 of the world can agree that 2016 sucked, right? I mean, we lost a bunch of beloved celebrities, the elections were going to be bad either way, and it seems like everybody lost a loved one, and if they didn't, it was just a really crappy year.
I want to label my toilet and every toilet at work "2016" and just crap in it all year long. Okay, that's achievable:
My first resolution is that, one year from now – nay, ten years from now – I look back and say that 2016 was easily the darkest and worst year of my life. (Unless of the course the zombie apocalypse happens first, then that might be considered the worst year ever. Maybe.)
And one step to ensure that happens is to make 2017 the year of…progress. As in, "We're not there yet, but we're making progress." It's the year to rebuild on the ruins of 2016.
We can't fix everything over night. And the older I get, the more I realize that most things take more than a year to fix or build.
So let's build toward an incredible 2018. Let's get in the habit now of eating better, casual exercising, socializing more, spending less, writing more, whatever.
If your resolution is to stay married next year, focus more on how to stay married so that in 2018, you can resolve to improve your marriage even more and make it even a better year.
If you really want a new job, don't just settle for the first dead-end job that offers you an out from your current situation. This is tough, but spend 2017 polishing up your resume, taking classes to improve yourself, sharpen your skills, so that in 2018, you can seriously be ready to apply for a newer, better job.
So, here's to 2018. May 2017 be the ladder that leads to a greater year.
Filed under Family Tagged with family, inspiration, New Years
Who's Your TV Daddy?
Alan Thicke's passing leaves many of us reminiscing back to calmer, gentler evenings where the family gathered around the TV every night to watch the next installment of their favorite sitcom. And for many families that sitcom was Growing Pains.
I wasn't as invested in the show as I was others, but I can still hear snapshots of Dr. Seaver yelling at his son for screwing up or trying to sooth over an argument with his wife. I remember I wanted his job because he never had to leave his house since his office was built in the guest room.
His passing got me thinking about other TV dads and how we all kind of have one or two that we believe act as our surrogates in some virtual way. For instance, Uncle Phil was definitely my surrogate uncle because I needed his discipline and loud yelling to get through to me and my stupid antics.
Tim Taylor from Home Improvement was definitely my TV dad. Probably because my own dad loves his tools and frames houses for a living. Unfortunately I identified with Jonathan Taylor Thomas' dramatic arts-loving character, so I had a hard time identifying with my dad. It was just good to see it work in a TV world.
I think it's kind of cool that we have these shows to look back on and adopt certain people as members of our virtual families. When Robin Williams died, I remember my best friend crying through a text message that he was the uncle he never had. We loved him, and yes we cried.
These actors leave an imprint on us. They're magicians who breathe life into a character who otherwise would never have existed, and these characters live on well after the cameras shut off.
Who's your TV dad? Danny Tanner? Mr. Cleaver? Homer?
Leave your answers below along with your favorite Growing Pains moment in honor of Mr. Thicke.
Filed under Family Tagged with entertainment, family, inspiration
December Isn't the Only Time We Lie to Our Kids
Christmas. The time of discounts and icy roads and beautiful…lies.
For us storytellers and pathological liars, December is the time of year where we have a free pass to lie to our families.
We can lie to our spouses. "I'm going out to fill the car up." But we're really hopping over to Target to pick up some gifts. (Or, if you're me, browsing the DVD section to see what's on sale.)
"What's in that bag?" asks your spouse. "Oh, some bars of soap and warm socks."
And the most popular: "If you're good, Santa will come bearing gifts." (Or, as he's called in our house by our toddlers, "Ho, ho, ho will come bearing gifts.")
It's a timeless debate. Should we lie to our kids about Santa? Will they trust us when it comes to anything else? Will they start believing they can sprout wings and fly and jump off the roof?
I'm no parenting expert, but here's my take on it:
I lied to my kids when I read them Peter Pan. Every time I put in Wreck-It Ralph because the movie suggests that video game characters exist outside of our control and have feelings and lead lives when the game consoles shut down. I have never once said, "Kids, this is make-believe and Wreck-it Ralph and Fix-it Felix don't really exist."
I've never once said to them, "People can't really fly," or "toys don't really come to life." Instead, I buy them Woody and Buzz dolls with built-in voice boxes that suggest that they're real.
I've also asked them every morning this month, "Did you hear any elves running around the house last night? Where do you think he's hiding today?" You know what I'm talking about.
I don't think telling your kids that Santa is coming is a bad thing. If I did, then I have no business letting them read books about talking dinosaurs. I don't think any of us suffered any psychological trauma having been told about Santa when we were younger. In fact, if we're really honest with ourselves, we didn't honestly believe Santa was real even when our dads dressed up and we were encouraged to leave cookies and milk on the fireplace mantel.
Otherwise, why did we so blindly accept the truth about electricity but we bogged our parents down with hundreds of Santa questions? We never had solid proof. It was mists of teasing. We can recall the smirks our parents threw at each other when they said the Santas at the malls were just his helpers. We can recall how their answers to our endless questions were nonchalant like, "Eh, he just kinda shimmies down those chimney. I don't know, the reindeer have pixie dust. Um, Santa's probably a thousand years old."
Think about it. You knew something was up. Our parents had a bigger reaction to the weather than to some world-traveler breaking into the house to leave mysterious boxes under the tree. I mean, those presents could have been bombs, or crazy sex toys.
But we also remember the feeling of magic and sentiment we felt when our parents were "in on it" with us. For one month out of the year our parents chose to believe what we wished was real.
What stands out to me the most about the Santa story is the themes of innocence and safety. The Santa story makes strangers friendly, the unknown pleasing and pleasant, and elves not so creepy. It also fights against pop-culture and film theories claiming red is a good and comforting color.
In short, the Santa story sets things right. I don't swear to my kids that Santa is real, and I don't make them sign some contract binding them to be good for Santa's sake. But I'm not going hide them from any image of Santa and insist that he's not real. Instead Sarabeth and I take a neutral stand. If they choose to believe in Santa, then who are we to stop them? I'm not going to rob them of that magic I felt growing up. They're smart kids. I know deep down they don't really believe the elf hops down off the shelf on his own every night, and they know that the reindeer at the zoo aren't going to just up and fly away.
We all have chosen a side in this great December debate. I've chosen my side because I can't stop the world from being dark and terrible, so I'm going to fill them with as much talking fish and wardrobe magic and Santa lore that I can.
Filed under Family Tagged with Christmas, family, humor


Poul Henningsen was one of Denmark's most influential designers and architects, Henningsen devoted his entire career to understanding light and how it could benefit our well being, he looked at how certain structures, materials and finishes when designed in specific ways could create a better light source. Henningsen was a valuable contributor to the field of lighting design, he focused on glare free designs that created a fixed illumination whilst featuring a simple structure.
Hennignsen's most famous work was his PH5 collection and his PH Artichoke Pendant, both designs featured an overlapping of metals. Influenced by simple living and simple forms he would use a series of layered shades that spread light evenly whilst also concealing the bulb fitting, his designs thus created a soft diffused ambience.
Henningsen's Artichoke pendant is a stunning design consisting of laser cut steel leaves, it was originally designed in three finishes, copper, white and brushed stainless steel, the fitting incorporated a natural, earthy Artichoke design with an industrial steel cut element.
Originally, Henningsen's PH5 Pendant was finished in a number of soft pastel colours but throughout the decades the fitting was only available in white or graphite finish. In 2008 to celebrate 50 years of PH's designs, Louis Poulsen commercially reintroduced 5 colours for the pendant. Known as PH50 the colours included Chilli Red, Mint Blue, Wasabi Green, Coconut White and Olive Black. Each design still features the renowned 3 and 4 tier function which integrates and diffuses illumination for a less harsh and glare free light. Most recently Louis Poulsen has created a smooth copper finished design which brings elements of industrialism up to date.


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5:06 Nets center Andre Blatche hits a jumper to make the score 62 57, and Pacers announcer Chris Denari mentions that like in Boston, Kevin Garnett has to come out early in the first and third quarters. This reminded me of the Pacers pregame show I was listening too on 1070 The Fan when Austin Croshere mentioned that he doesn fully buy in to this Brooklyn squad to be a top seeded team. Basically Croshere believes that with the years of basketball mileage on their body, Garnett and Pierce could perhaps reach their full potential if they played once every three games. Throw in the fact that Pierce, Garnett, and Jason Terry combined for 8 23 from the field, 21 points, and nine turnovers, I now wonder how Sports Illustrated picked this squad to be the number three seed over the course of an 82 game season.
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The Pacers had had leading contributors all the way down their starting line up to go along with Paul George 24 points Lance Stephenson finished with 15 points, seven assists David West finished with 18 points and eight rebounds Roy Hibbert had 15 points, 11 rebounds, and two blocks.
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(Has anyone ever said it weird seeing Deron Williams in a Nets jersey? Anyone?)
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Lady Griz hand Selvig 800th career win with 68 61 victory over PortlandGriz up to fifth in TSN poll, highest ranking of seasonBig Sky honors Sac State QB SafronNorth Dakota football coach firedSince 1897, the Cat Griz rivalry has captivated the stateFamily health: Prepare yourself and your vehicle for winter drivingFitness calendarBirths for Tuesday, November 19Angler with 4th place total takes Fall Mack Days fishing tournament titleWestern Montana hunters get help from fresh snow, rutIf the name Grace Coddington is familiar, you've probably seen the 2009 documentary film "The September Issue" about Vogue magazine's Editor in Chief Anna Wintour, the most feared and revered woman in fashion. Now Coddington, the longtime creative director of Vogue, has her own star vehicle, an engaging memoir titled "Grace," co written with Michael Roberts. For anyone with a passing interest in the fashion industry, it's worth a read for the name dropping alone.As became clear in the film, which chronicled the magazine's staff as they put together the 4 pound September 2007 issue, Coddington is not the Anna Wintour or Diana Vreeland type. You won't hear her barking orders at assistants or making dramatic pronouncements about pink.But she is equally passionate, a wild haired dreamer who thinks that fashion should be transporting, provocative and even intellectual, who bemoans the dominance of celebrities and digital hocus pocus in fashion photography and who isn't afraid to take on Wintour.The book is a window into how fashion has changed from a small, niche business into a global pop culture medium. It chronicles Coddington's 50 years in the industry, first as a model, then as a fashion editor for British Vogue and finally as creative director for American Vogue, with lots of juicy anecdotes about designers, photographers, celebrities and models.She compares the fashion world then and now and offers clues into her relationship with Wintour. She's also open about her private life, including details about failed marriages, the tragic death of her sister Rosemary and her 30 year romance with French hairstylist Didier Malige. She tells colorful stories behind many of the fashion shoots she has styled, but I do wish she had offered more insight into her role in the creative process.Coddington begins by painting a picture of her upbringing as romantic as any photo shoot. For her first 18 years, her home was the Trearddur Bay Hotel on the island of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales. "Although it was bleak, I saw beauty in the bleakness." When she wasn't outdoors, she amused herself by looking at picture books, reading fairy tales and, yes, studying the pages of Vogue magazine. As a teen, she went to a convent school and has vivid memories of the nuns roller skating on the rooftop, "flapping about surreally in their robes like crows on wheels."At 18, she moved to London to attend a modeling course advertised in Vogue. The fashion world was much different in 1959. Coddington had to learn how to apply her own makeup and style her own hair, because makeup artists and hairdressers specializing in photo shoots were nonexistent. A meeting with photographer Norman Parkinson led to her first modeling job running naked through the woods for an arty fashion catalog.Coddington became an overnight success. "I was a character, rather than a pretty model, and I suppose that's exactly what I look for in the girls I now select to put in American Vogue the ones who are quirky looking."She earned the nickname "The Cod" (to Jean Shrimpton's "The Shrimp"), danced the twist on Mary Quant's catwalk and became a muse to Vidal Sassoon, who created his famous five point cut on Coddington. Her modeling career was derailed for two years by a car accident, which scarred her left eyelid. But eventually things picked up again, and she settled into life in 1960s swinging London and Paris, hanging out with a fast crowd that included Michael Caine, Jane Birkin, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.Her fashion editing career coincided with the beginning of her relationship with Michael Chow and the opening of his glamorous restaurant Mr. Chow, which attracted a starry crowd. "Naturally, we were forever being photographed at home, draped among our symbols of 'with it ness' as one of London's most happening couples; him, the cool young restaurateur, nonchalantly swinging in a hammock hung from the minstrel's gallery and me, the sophisticated style maker, perkily sitting cross legged atop a giant pop art version of a Campbell's soup can."At the height of the bohemian 1970s, she dyed her hair with henna and permed it (it would stay the same for much of the next 40 years), dressed almost exclusively in Yves Saint Laurent, had a fling with a Vietnamese photographer and spent her evenings at Club Sept in Paris. Coddington worked with the who's who of fashion. She shot Anjelica Huston with photographer David Bailey and Pat Cleveland with Helmut Newton.When Bea Miller, who had edited British Vogue for 22 years, retired, Coddington interviewed for the job but says she knew deep down she wasn't suited for it and thought that Wintour, then the creative director of American Vogue, should get it.Wintour did get it. Two days into her editorship, she invited Coddington to a screening of the racy film "Betty Blue." The two sat in dead silence through the opening sequence, a vivid five minute sex scene."Anna was rigid and unmoving. No sign of any emotion at all," Coddington writes. "I then realized how much significance Anna places on willpower trumping feelings."In 1988, when Wintour was appointed editor in chief at American Vogue, Coddington asked to join her. Coddington's narrative style fashion features and travelogues, a sampling of which appear in the book, became the heart and soul of the magazine, even as its pages became increasingly taken over by celebrities. Through her visual canvases, she interpreted the New Romantic period, grunge and the South Beach blinged out 1990s, and persuaded superstar designers Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and others to play roles in a shoot based on "Alice in Wonderland."She sums up her creative process this way: "For me, one of the most important aspects of my work is to give people something to dream about, just as I used to dream all those years ago as a child looking at beautiful photographs."The book ends with a chapter on then and now. "Fashion has changed so much in my lifetime," Coddington writes. "Today, I find myself at the collections, asking, 'Who are all these people?' Sometimes I think I'm the last remaining person who comes to the shows for the pleasure of seeing the clothes."At 71, she seldom wears makeup and doesn't socialize much. But her attempt in the last 100 pages to distance herself from the term "fashionista" is a bit of a stretch. Clearly, Coddington has led a most charmed life. Otherwise, we wouldn't be reading about it.We provide this community forum for readers to exchange ideas and opinions on the news of the day. Passionate views, pointed criticism and critical thinking are welcome. Comments can only be submitted by registered users. By posting comments on our site, you are agreeing to the following terms:
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Paid video streaming websites are a way better, but to pay each time you want to watch live soccer on the Internet is clearly not something you feel too enthusiastic about.
2. Hardware Installation
PCTV card installed on your computer can enable it to receive satellite TV signals just the way a satellite dish does. However, not many people decide to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their PCs just to be able to watch live soccer on the Internet.
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The fastest and easiest option comes in the form of a software installation. Satellite TV on PC software is a new invention that allows converting your computer to a satellite TV feed receiver in the cheapest way. Once you purchase the software, there are no recurrent charges, no pay-per-view programs. You can enjoy your favorite soccer games every day, because, in fact, you get far more sports channels than what your satellite or cable TV has.
Do not worry if you have never watched live streaming TV online. It is very simple, and the user-friendly software ensures that there is simply no room for any mistakes. This method also ensures great quality of picture and sound to make your viewing experience really delightful.
On my blog, you can find further information and lots of tips and tricks on how you can watch live soccer on the Internet.
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a memoir of fashion dreamer's life in vogue


Household cleaning cannot be separated from the vacuum cleaners, especially for such house that has carpets or footcloths (even people dragged the carpet out of the room with a large amount of time-consuming). Simultaneously via vacuum cleaners, people can take out the dust and mites or accrues which is difficult to root out or eliminate, that the families' health can be forcefully guaranteed. --It also can be widely and conveniently used to clean home, office and all blinds. While it was easy and fast to wash and clean but quite difficult to keep it in good condition, and how to keep its optimum functions when do cleaning without do harm to its engine body. In this way, all-right avoided to spoil the ship for a half penny worth of the tar. Supporting the below measures that users can be comfortable and satisfied to deal with the relevant matters.
1. The cleaning of vacuum cleaners' appearance. The cleaning of vacuum cleaners' appearance was originally simple and easy, normally it only needs using soft cloth with soap-suds to scrub and swab down the surface, but do not use organic solvent to clean the engine body for the sake of avoiding the outside plastic crack and color fading or paint removing. Certainly, it cannot use hard things as steel wire ball and the like to wash for avoiding do harm to the engine body.
2. It was really a troublesome thing to wash the dust bag. It can be replaced timely with a new one if it were some-kinds disposable. While it needs use lukewarm water to wash if it was the dust bag then can be use after naturally dry in the sun. But you should keep an eye on one point that you should timely check the dust bag whether damaged or wear out, if so, you 'd better change a new one for the sake of the damaged dust bag do harm to the engine machine.
3. The cleaning of vacuum cleaners' dust collecting barrel. It will be easier to wash such dustbin, people can use the normal household detergent to wash it. It can be quickly and normally use after naturally dry in the sun, but also do not use some-like hard things to wash or scrub for the sake of breaking or rupturing of the vacuum cleaners' dust collecting barrel.
4. The cleaning of the vacuum cleaners' filter. If it was papieren or papierowy, you can use banister brush to wash, and it must be careful to remove the inside dust without overexert for the sake of filter paper sheets going into collapse. As to the filter made of velvet bag or the floss bag, it must wash with cold water, and then naturally dry in the sun. But do not use warm water to wash or dry or warm by the fire. If do so, it will shrink or diminish the slim hole to cause pores blocked as well as influence the suction of vacuum cleaners.
Keep the above tips on mind when you do the cleaning with a vacuum cleaner, which can make your life be more clean, simple and comfortable.
Next: Which Kinds Of Vacuum Cleaner Will Be Better?


Community Legal Aid is seeking input from local residents who are currently enrolled or have been enrolled in Medicaid. The move is in response to the recent federal approval of Ohio's Medicaid Waiver, which imposes work requirements for eligible Ohioans enrolled in Medicaid.
The nonprofit law firm is trying to gain a better understanding of how the new restrictions will impact their clients, according to Executive Director Steven McGarrity.
Legal Aid, a 501(c)3 nonprofit law firm, provides free legal help to low-income residents in central northeast Ohio. Many of their clients use Medicaid as their primary healthcare coverage.
Marie Curry, managing attorney for Legal Aid's health and education law programs, explained that the exemptions outlined by the Ohio Department of Medicaid would help many of their clients.
These new requirements could impact up to 315,000 Ohioans state wide, according to a statement released March 15 by the nonpartisan think tank Policy Matters Ohio.
Those interested in learning more can fill out a brief survey here at https://survey.communitylegalaid.org/aayn.


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Judith Alyek (8 de octubre de 1971) es una política ugandesa. Es representante del distrito de Kole y presidenta del Comité del VIH/sida y enfermedades relacionadas del Parlamento de Uganda. También es miembro del Movimiento de Resistencia Nacional por el que se postuló a las elecciones generales de 2016.

Trayectoria
Alyek asistió a la escuela Atan Primary School en el Distrito de Kole. Entre 1987 y 1990, cursó estudios de bachillerato en la escuela secundaria St. Catherine de Lira y obtuvo el UACE en el Dr. Obote College de Boroboro en 1993. Desde entonces, ha desempeñado diferentes cargos públicos. Entre 2000 y 2006 fue inspectora de salud del gobierno local del distrito de Lira, desde 2007 hasta 2010, ejerció como Educadora de Salud para el gobierno local del distrito de Dokolo, entre 2011 y 2015, ocupó el cargo de Asesora Técnica de Salud Materno Infantil, VIH/sida y Nutrición en AVSI Foundation y, desde 2016, es la Representante de las Mujeres del distrito de Kole. En agosto de 2021, Alyek fue elegida como Presidenta del Lango Parliamentary Group.

Como parte del Parlamento de Uganda es la Presidenta del Comité sobre el VIH/sida y enfermedades relacionadas, miembro del Comité de Negocios, del Comité de Salud, de la Uganda Women Parliamentary Association (UWOPA), de la junta de la Uganda Aids Commission, de la International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) y Presidenta de SERVE Uganda.

Activismo
Como presidenta del comité sobre el VIH/sida y enfermedades relacionadas, ha pedido que se realicen pruebas obligatorias a los hombres para detectar la enfermedad, y ha solicitado a los líderes locales que revelen su estado de VIH como ejemplo a los ciudadanos.

En julio de 2017, presentó una moción para la implementación de todas las políticas y leyes relacionadas con los niños. Instó a la formación de una autoridad que facilite el seguimiento y la aplicación de los derechos de los niños.

A raíz de la muerte de Dickens Okello en 2018, instó a los miembros del parlamento de la región de Lango a revisar y recomendar acciones contra los indígenas acusados de violar los derechos de su pueblo.

Vida privada
En 2017, Alyek afirmó estar casada con Richard Odongo y negó las afirmaciones del subjefe del clan Inomo de que Ambrose Eger, entonces fallecido, era su esposo.

Véase también

 Parlamento de Uganda

Referencias

Enlaces externos
 Sitio web del Parlamento de Uganda.
 Perfil de Twitter de Judith Alyek.

Activistas en lucha contra el sida
Nacidos en 1971
Personas vivas
Políticas de Uganda
Ugandesas del siglo XX
Ugandesas del siglo XXI
´Políticos de Uganda del siglo XXI

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