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Digesting a Faustian Farce
On its surface, the narrative premise of Little Shop of Horrors, currently playing at Players Guild Theatre in Canton, is patently ridiculous, despite the fact that it's intended to be unabashedly farcical. Here's a sci-fi horror spoof about a nebbishy Skid Row flower shop worker who is promised fame and fortune if he feeds human flesh and blood to a voracious alien houseplant intent on dominating the world. Is this stage art of any real consequence?
Then again, let's not forget the maxim offered by a master of comic absurdity, Johnny Carson: "If you buy the premise you buy the bit." I find it interesting that the original working script, written by Charles Griffith for the 1960 film that inspired this stage musical, was titled "The Passionate People Eater." Operative term here: passionate.
Directed and choreographed by Michael Lawrence Akers, this tongue-in-cheek Guild production does indeed have passion, though certainly not of the high-brow heroic sort. Call it passion for parody. And when delivered with panache, as is the case here with Akers' sizzling cast, parody can be an efficacious art in itself.
Tom Bryant turns in a credible and sturdy portrayal of Mr. Mushnik. World-weary, cranky and domineering, he's the owner of a flower shop on the verge of closing for lack of business. But he finds a giddy new life unfolding when his assistant, Seymour, acquires an exotic houseplant that attracts lucrative media and public attention.
Playing Seymour, Matthew Heppe is spot-on as a lovably nervous nerd (right down to his taped eyeglasses) who pines so much for the girl of his dreams, co-worker Audrey, that he names his prized plant Audrey II. While Heppe's singing voice doesn't employ any showy vibrato, his tonality is nonetheless confident, pure and warm.
Sarah Marie Young is delightfully cheeky in her role of the scatterbrained Audrey. Her singing of Somewhere That's Green is rich with a sweet woundedness, and easily the show's most genuinely touching song.
Other than the carnivorous Audrey II, the human antagonist here is Audrey's sadistic biker- dentist boyfriend, Orin, played by Ryan Nehlen, who is as abusive to Audrey as he is to his patients. The audacious Nehlen is both chilling and utterly hilarious, like some sociopathic Fonzie from a parallel universe. He gets his comeuppance in one of the show's most raucous scenes (with Seymour), singing Now (It's Just the Gas).
Another electrifying component of the production is the saucy trio of women characters played by Russelle' Sanchez (Ronnette), Ruby Myles (Crystal), and Tahja Grier (Chiffon). Like a street-wise Greek chorus, they bring a palpable sparkle to the musical score – a spicy blend of early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and Motown. Several times during the matinee performance I saw on October 20, the trio's singing got so lost in its own swagger that the lyrics were obscured and harmonies slightly off-pitch. But in the larger scheme of things, and given the sheer glow of the trio's infectious energy (made all the more tangible in the intimate surrounds of the Guild's arena theater), it was a minor flaw.
And even what the audience doesn't see on stage makes a vital contribution. Bart Herman is the off-stage voice of Audrey II, and his facile vocalizing gives the cantankerous carnivore's menacing demands a seductive, even soulful edge. Inside the huge Audrey II is puppeteer Stephen Middaugh, who actually animates the creature with a variety of apropos moves and moods. Also from off-stage, the sound from the super-hot live band directed by Steve Parsons is in perfect aural balance with the singing.
While there's nothing intrinsically wrong about escapist entertainment, I nonetheless left the theater thinking that this particular show is as much a cautionary tale for our time as it is simply a whacky, macabre "comedy." There's no happy ending to Seymour's deal with the devil, as it were. The story is perhaps a sobering parody of how our modern culture is consumed by its monstrous pursuit of material gain and celebrity. Food for thought, to be sure.
Little Shop of Horrors, presented by the Canton Players Guild Theatre, shows at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, THROUGH NOVEMBER 3, 1001 Market Ave. N in Canton. Tickets $17 at www.playersguildtheatre.com or at 330-453-7617
PHOTOS, courtesy Michael Lawrence Akers: (Top) Sarah Marie Young as Audrey, Matthew Heppe as Seymour; (Bottom) Bart Herman (left), Stephen Middaugh
Posted by Tom Wachunas at 12:49 PM No comments:
Joie de la Danse
"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive." -Merce Cunningham
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. In the 21 years I've been back in Canton (after 14 years in New York City), writing about the visual and performing (local theatre and the Canton Symphony) arts around here, I've written nothing on dance. This is a glaring irony, considering that nearly half of my published journalistic output in New York was in the realm of dance – Modern dance, to be specific. This is not to say I had any disdain for classical ballet, especially considering that virtually all the best modern dancers I encountered in New York were well trained in at least the rudiments of that form.
Compared to the flourishing dance landscape of New York, I wrongly assumed that Canton of the 1990s was a veritable desert in that regard. And honesty compels me to confess that whether from laziness or effitist snobbery (as in, 'can any really good dance come from Canton?') on my part, I never seriously considered much less saw the Canton Ballet in performance. Call it a classic case of contempt prior to investigation.
After seeing the October 11 Director's Choice concert at the Canton Palace Theatre, I can say only that, with hat in hand, I've been missing a deeply significant element of the Canton cultural profile.
Under the leadership and training provided by Cassandra Crowley, the Canton Ballet Artistic and Executive Director since 1980, dancers from the company have garnered considerable recognition in prestigious competitions as well as moving on to dance professionally with highly reputable companies. The level of technical excellence required for such achievements was for the most part abundantly evident during the October 11 event, which was a thoroughly engaging mix of traditional (i.e., more classically-oriented) and modern choreography.
Among the more enthralling works on the program was Jubilation, choreographed by Angelo Lemmo, Canton Ballet's Choreographer in Residence since 1991. Set to a medley of traditional gospel songs, the work is a tour de force of soulful expressivity – at once graceful, sensual and visceral. Those qualities were particularly well personified in a duet by Bradley Beckwith with Kirstyn Wolonsky during a stunning version of "Amazing Grace."
After intermission, Wolonsky, a 9-year Canton Ballet student and junior at Lake High School, was utterly hypnotic in her poignant solo during the meditative Glimmer of Hope, choreographed by Christina Digiuseppe. Wolonsky's fluidity was magical, making me wonder at how she could so effortlessly transition from her repeatedly lithe, recumbent floor rolls and extensions back into upright position.
Guest artist Ethan Lee, who trained for ten years under Crowley at Canton Ballet and is now a member of NEOS Dance Company of Mansfield, was certainly mesmerizing enough in two works during the first half of the program. But nowhere was he more physically and emotionally commanding than in the second half's Hellas, an intense, sinewy solo work set to music by J.S. Bach and choreographed by Jin Byung Cheol.
The piece – indeed the entire evening – refreshed my long-neglected appreciation of seeing dance live on stage. I was delightfully reminded that of all humanity's forms of codified expression, dance is arguably the most primordial. And Terpsichore may well be the most ancient Muse, still inspiring compelling responses to being alive.
PHOTO: The Dance Class, by Edgar Degas
Prismatic Devotions
"Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the Universe." - Galileo
"Geometry is the knowledge of the eternally existent." –Pythagoras
"Mighty is geometry; joined with art, resistless." –Euripides
Exhibit: math.LOGOS.music – language of The Divine, work by Amy Schlabach, THROUGH NOVEMBER 3, at Little Art Gallery, located in the North Canton Library, 185 N. Main Street, North Canton, 330-499-4712 Ext. 312, http://www.ncantonlibrary.com/?q=little_art_gallery
Let's get spiritual – and personal. I try not to use the word "powerful" too lightly when describing the impact that some works of art have on me. But in this case, Amy Schlabach's vibrant paintings merit that term and then some. Here I mean 'powerful' to signify what I consider to be the single most edifying function and capacity of art: To transport both mind and heart to a specific spiritual place; to reflect, honor and otherwise successfully direct our attentions to the source of all human creativity - God.
Before reading any of the pieces' titles, or Schlabach's other written materials provided by the gallery, even the quickest glance at these radiant, iridescent paintings imparts an experience that is as much "religious" as it is purely aesthetic. It helps to know that the capitalized word LOGOS in the title of the show means WORD in Greek. And here, not just any word, but the word, in reference to Christ, as boldly revealed in the first verse of the gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Schlabach's deep appreciation of (and college degree in) mathematics generated fervent awe of her Creator. Mathematics is a lens – or better yet, prism – through which she sees evidence of a Divine plan. Her acrylic paintings are meditative, harmonious fusions of geometric and organic shapes saturated with sumptuous color. These are abstract configurations that are, like much of mathematics itself, executed with impressive, formulaic exactitude. Yet for all of their hard edges and crisply defined shapes, they nonetheless pulse with a soft, painterly energy, evoking the undulating luminescence of stained glass windows in a church. It's a visual quality greatly heightened by the generous addition - to her already regal palette - of powdered 24K gold, along with silver and copper.
There's also a musicality about these compositions in the way Schlabach establishes varying rhythmic patterns of shapes and linearities within the picture plane, suggesting what one might call the Divine heartbeat of the universe, at once cosmic and profoundly intimate. In her statement, she cites her musical inspiration this way: "Behind the ethereal harmonies of music is the calculable beauty of mathematics. Numbers weave a dance through the overtones, timbre, pitch, and rhythms of music."
What I find most enlivening about this body of work shouldn't be a surprise to those of you who have been reading my posts with any regularity. In the context of the often ugly pluralism of ideas and forms we can encounter in postmodernist art, the real power and beauty of this exhibit is its single-minded, courageous declaration of faith in Biblical truth. Here is an eloquent reminder that mathematics isn't so much a human invention per se as much as it is one of the many ways (gifts, actually) God uses to reveal himself to us.
But most important, the Word. Schlabach's triptych, Godhead, is a gorgeous homage to the Trinity, with the Hebrew word for Eternal Father in the left panel and, signifying the Holy Spirit, a dove in the right panel. Hovering in the center, the Cross of Christ. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:17)
I'll sing to that.
PHOTOS, courtesy Elizabeth Blakemore (Little Art Gallery Curator), from top: The Godhead; Revelation 22:1,2 ; Archimedes' Constant (y)
Posted by Tom Wachunas at 2:39 PM 4 comments:
Refined Crudities
"There is no art without intoxication. But I mean a mad intoxication! Let reason teeter! Delirium! The highest degree of delirium! Plunged in burning dementia! Art is the most enrapturing orgy within man's reach. Art must make you laugh a little and make you a little afraid. Anything as long as it doesn't bore." -Jean Dubuffet
EXHIBIT: Curiosities: Work by Tom Megalis, THROUGH OCTOBER 26 at Translations Art Gallery, 331 Cleveland Avenue NW, downtown Canton www.translationsart.com/curiosities http://www.megalisart.com/
This collection of two and three-dimensional works (something of a mini-retrospective, actually) is a raucous hybridization of modernist visual languages. The earliest language goes back 100 years to Cubism, with its radical deconstruction of the painted picture plane and its integration of found objects. From there, it would be difficult to believe that Tom Megalis hasn't consciously distilled a syntax that blends such dialects as Jean Dubuffet's art brut, Saul Steinberg's off-kilter cartoons, Jean-Michel Basquiat's oracular primitivism, or Tim Burton's more macabre figurations, to name just some.
That said, Megalis certainly brings his own imaginative recipe for animated storytelling - both prosaic and poetic - to this multiplicity of influences. Combined with his dizzying arsenal of fabrication techniques and media (read his statement at the gallery or on the Translations web page), he has concocted a highly textured gumbo, as it were, or chunky-style hunter's stew of motley characters and narratives.
Some of his depictions - his jarring Trouble at the Doorstep from 1998, or the dowdy Smoking and Drinking Woman (2011), for example - are earthy, essentially low-relief sculptures, scruffily painted and constructed with utilitarian detritus such as slices of wood, scrap metal, and corrugated board. His three-dimensional pieces, such as the sinewy musician in Flute Shed, and the whimsical Brush Head Man, are gritty, highly tactile assemblages full of humor and mischief.
The more recent (2013) acrylic and spray painting, The Birth, is a commandingly sprawling abstraction. Far from a romanticized translation of wondrous or tender nativity, this is a visceral, writhing array of amorphous anatomical shapes interspersed with thick paint splats and drips – an altogether electrified grimace.
In general, the physical rawness of this art exudes a picaresque sensibility, not too unlike the untamed, indelicate spirit we once commonly associated with "outsider art." So yes, to borrow from the Dubuffet quote above, this is indeed delirious art that can make you laugh,… or be a little afraid. The collection here presents a tenuous balance of innocent playfulness with palpable angst. Still, it's art that intoxicates with an uncanny mystique.
PHOTOS, from top: The Birth; Trouble at the Doorstep; Brush Head Man; Eden; Stand Up
A Mixed Scottish Bag from Canton Symphony Orchestra
What more appropriate way to begin a Scottish-themed program than with a live pipe and drum band? Members of the Celtic Eagle Pipe Band joined the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in opening its 2013- 2014 season with Marches and Airs, written by local composer and Music Director of the Tuscarawas Philharmonic, Eric Benjamin.
In his program notes, Benjamin made no secret of his love for the sound of bagpipes. Addressing the task of effectively blending the orchestra with the sequence of six traditional Scottish tunes that comprise the work, he wrote, "As the music exists for pipes and drums alone, the challenge for me as an arranger was to come up with interesting things for the orchestra to do so as to contribute something unique to the sequence."
Not least among the challenges was to allow the orchestra instruments to be heard against a loud group of three pipers and two drummers. When the piece began, with distant, dream-like tones from the bagpipes emanating from the rear of the auditorium, there was every indication that a pleasing aural blend was achievable as the orchestra echoed the haunting effect from the stage.
The performance waxed problematic, however, when the band marched to the very front of the house to play the remainder of the piece. Here, the famous (or infamous?) Scottish two-tone pipe wail became an obstacle to hearing the orchestra. To be fair, there were some audible enough passages wherein the orchestra delivered genuinely stirring and lush melodic transitions between pipe tunes. But such moments were short-lived respites from the seemingly incessant off-pitch piercings of the bagpipes. Notably absent from the overall sound was a counter- balance that might have been accomplished with elevated sonority from the bass instruments. Yet for all of that, the performance exuded a type of frenetic heroism, prompting a portion of the audience to a standing ovation.
Violinist William Preucil, concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra, was the guest soloist for the second work on the program, Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy. If wizardly technique were the sole measure of perfect playing, this performance would indeed qualify as a flawless gem. Through all four movements, the work calls for commanding virtuosity from the soloist in articulating flurries of arpeggios, sustained trills and crisp double-stoppings. Preucil met that requirement with astonishing precision and fluidity.
Largely missing, though, was the emotional resonance of the folk melodies which inspired the composer. The prevailing spirit here seemed more intellectual than lyrical. As the sonic temperature of Preucil's playing remained somewhat tepid throughout, Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann kept the orchestra at a similarly understated level, no doubt to stay balanced with both Preucil's soft touch and the important, lovely accompanying solo work from CSO principal harpist Nancy Patterson. As it was, the performance elicited another standing ovation.
So too the evening's final work, Mendelssohn's magnificent Symphony No. 3, the "Scottish." Only this time, the reaction from the audience seemed more unanimous and palpably electric, surely because the orchestra had shed all traces of the overly-finessed restraint so apparent in the previous work.
Mendelssohn's compelling and evocative musicality, especially in the drama of the third movement and vivacious majesty of the finale, provided solid ground from which the orchestra could truly soar. With impeccable artistry, the CSO demonstrated the full range of its technical and expressive capabilities. And nowhere in this remarkable body of musicians are those elements more evident than in the powerful, refined sonority of the string section. This was the orchestra we came to hear.
PHOTOS (from top): CSO Music Director Gerhardt Zimmermann; Composer Eric Benjamin; Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil
www.cantonsymphony.org
Marketing an Impossible Dream?
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." -Picasso
File this one under response to a response to a plea(se). I just finished reading Judi Krew's Oct. 1 blog post (here's the link – www.snarkyart.blogspot.com ), wherein she re-prints and then responds to an impassioned Sept. 29 facebook post from artist Tim Carmany (The Hub Gallery and Studios in downtown Canton). If you haven't read Krew's stirring response, please do so before proceeding here.
Her comments conjured my favorite scene from the 1989 fantasy-drama film, Field of Dreams. Kevin Costner, walking through his Iowa corn field, hears a disembodied voice whispering, "If you build it, he will come." Long story short, Kostner plows his field and builds a baseball diamond in its place, which becomes a symbol of realized dreams and in the process saves him from bankruptcy via the paying customers who come to watch baseball games.
So let's consider an analogy for a moment and think of the heart of downtown Canton as a once dowdy if not forbidding piece of real estate, transformed over the past decade into a destination we now call the Arts District. I imagine that the building process was initiated by a collective inspiration, voicing itself thus: "If you build it, they will come." In this analogy, I understand the 'they' to include not only the proprietors and owners, curators, artists and related culture mavens who originally boarded the downtown renaissance train – pioneers all, who courageously forged a trail for others to follow - but also a responsive, "supportive" Canton public.
I do count myself among those artists who passionately believe that the making (and viewing) of art is as vital to a meaningful life as eating and breathing. I also fully understand that the market for local original art is a very tiny niche when seen in the larger context of the public's discretionary spending on "luxuries" and "entertainment." (By the way, if it hasn't been apparent yet, my comments are predicated on my unwavering belief that art isn't a luxury, but an indispensable cultural necessity.) We live in a society wrestling with a terribly frail economy amid intensely divided allegiances, and beleaguered with desperate cries for all manner of help, including financial. The ever-present call – indeed pressure - to prioritize our sympathies, discerning between needs and desires, can often bring us to a paralyzing compassion fatigue and complacency.
In this climate, is it reasonable to think that local gallery owners and artists, who have up to now been so admirably dedicated and tenacious in bringing substantial life to downtown, could continue to do so indefinitely without a consistent show of material support from the public? Just what is the shelf-life of dreams anyway?
So here's where things remain at a dicey crossroads. However we might characterize the inspiring voice that fuels the evolution of arts sensibilities in our town, it is a voice which really never promised anyone, "If you build it, they will buy." Arts District notwithstanding, it remains to be seen if Canton could become a cosmopolitan center of truly sustainable, thriving retail art businesses. And so far, the downtown First Fridays, even at their most joyously frenzied, are no guarantee of such a reality. We're still largely in dream mode and may be teetering on a precipitous threshold: Buy art, or bye art.


The Antiquary Blended Scotch whisky range's redesign was aimed to illustrate the brand's claim to be 'a cut above' due to the high proportion of malt whiskies contained in its blended recipes.
The glass developed by O-I features a large diamond shaped label panel, which is highlighted by triangular panels. The overall effect echoes a sparkling diamond.
The container also features a long, cylindrical neck, allowing for a particularly deep, golden pilfer-proof closure.
Any whisky that wants to thrive on the global stage has to carve out a distinctive positioning. This diamond of a glass bottle from O-I, coupled with gift cartons and boxes which continue the diamond theme, provide just the point of difference we need.


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#173 / Father's Day Stories
I didn't know my father back when he was riding a motorcycle and delivering telegrams for Western Union. That was before I was born. I did know him in 2001, which is when the pastel portrait at the bottom of this blog posting was made.
Given that this is Father's Day, I thought that an appreciation of my father, Philips Bowerman Patton, usually called "Phil," would be in order. I am following up, in other words, on the idea I mentioned last Wednesday, trying to document how my Dad taught me about "possibility." Another reason for this posting is to memorialize at least a few of my best "Phil Patton stories" for my children and grandchildren. My father was a very impressive person, and my children, and their children, deserve to have a reference to these stories. I am thinking they might want to return to them when I am not around, myself, to tell them one more time. Given my age, that could be any moment now!
AMERICAN BOY
American Boy magazine was published from November 1899 to August 1941. My father was born on September 25, 1914, and I guess my Dad's mother had a subscription for him, because when my father was fifteen, he entered a contest, sponsored by the magazine, and won. Geri, the great grandson of the famous "movie dog hero Strongheart," was the prize. The magazine asked, on behalf of Geri, for "American Boys," from all over the country, to write out a job description, and to offer Geri a job. In July 1930, the magazine announced: "In the near future, [Geri] will be boarding a train for St. Anthony, Idaho, to start his life work as family manager, house detective, and all-around pal to Phil B. Patton, AMERICAN BOY reader. For Geri has selected his home. From more than six hundred letters, written in response to the Pup's want ad in the May contest announcement, Geri finally picked Patton's as offering the most interesting and worthwhile career."
Here's what my Dad wrote, as presented in the magazine:
Come Out to Idaho, Pup
By Phil B. Patton (15)
St. Anthony Idaho
FROM the latest copy of THE AMERICAN BOY I gather that you want to sign up for a position in which there is little work but a lot of fun. Well, here's my offer.
You will be expected to be on the job twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. You will have for a boss an "American Boy," fifteen years old, who, since nine years ago (when he realized he could never have a brother) has longed and hoped for a dog. Your duties will be as follows:
About midsummer you will be expected to go to Scout camp with me. Of course, you will be the idol of every boy there, and the mascot of our troop. Then, when the first light snows come, you and I will hunt jack rabbits. Oh, yes, there are thousands of them within two miles of my home. You see, there are only three thousand people in our town. Then, as the winter progresses, we will go to the Great American Dog Derby, which is held at Ashton, Idaho, only eighteen miles from my home.
When spring comes, you and I, Pup, are going squirrel hunting. We will go for week-end trips into the mountains, and of course the summer can't pass without us going through Yellowstone Park. Then, too, Pup, about twice a month, you and I will to out into the green meadow and roll up in a blanket to sleep. At five o'clock we'll wake to the chirping of crickets and the "caw caw" of magpies. Jumping up for a duck in the pond, we will watch the wonderful sun peep over the Teton peaks and climb toward the top of the sky. After that, we'll take our pole and get some native, rainbow, or spotted trout for breakfast. Do you see the fun we could have and the comradeship I could give you, and you me?
Pup, already I feel that we know each other. I think you'll have to admit life is worth living out here "Where the West begins." And, Pup, I work in a store that has a meat counter, so even if my finances sink so low that I can't feed myself, there will always be plenty for you to eat. If you come, I positively guarantee to put enough flesh on you to fill your entire skin!
And, Pup, remember this, that what I can't offer you in other things, I will make up in day-to-day companionship. To think that maybe – I scarce dare hope it, but maybe ----
Sadly, my Dad's mother died shortly after Geri showed up in St. Anthony. So, there were no jack rabbits. No trips to Yellowstone. No rainbow trout. The famous trainer who had personally come to St. Anthony when the dog was orginally delivered had to come back, and he took Geri away. As is shown in the photos, though, my father did, at least, have a few happy moments with Geri. Shortly after his mother died, however, when he was still fifteen years old, my Dad was sent to live with his older sister, my Aunt Marjorie, in San Francisco.
ALMA BRACKEN PATTON
From my own point of view, there was one very significant "upside" to this sad story.
It was in San Francisco, when they were both students in Polytechnic High School, that my father met my mother. Had that not happened, I don't think that I would be around here to tell the tale. Speaking strictly from my own personal perspective, that move to San Francisco turned out to be a very good thing!
My father was really a great writer, as you can tell from that story about Geri and the contest sponsored by American Boy magazine. That ability to write turned out to be pretty important with respect to his relationship to my mother, too.
The way I remember the story is that my mother, then Alma Bracken, came into a classroom where my father was taking a class, to make some kind of announcement. I think she was trying to sell subscriptions to the school newspaper, or something like that. My father was immediately smitten, and he began pursuing my mother. My mother, though - at least the way I understand it - was not immediately and reciprocally attracted to my father, at least not in quite the same way.
It is my supposition that my mother was pretty "popular" in high school, and that my father, having just arrived in the big city from little St. Anthony, Idaho, was not exactly one of the "popular" set. My Dad was really involved with experiments with electricity, and radio. I won't claim he was a "nerd," because I actually don't know that, and that word didn't really exist then, either, but I think my Dad might have been the equivalent.
Nerd or not, my father did pursue my mother, and that continued even after high school, when my Dad was working for Western Union and my Mom was working for some kind of insurance company. My Dad was always on the track. I have had a chance to read my father's love letters to my mother, which I think are now in the custody of my sister Nancy (though I am not positive about that), and they were extremely well-written. VERY persuasive. Unrelenting, you might even say - but his years' long campaign to win my mother's heart was ultimately successful.
My Mom and Dad were married in July 1940, and I was born in December 1943. As I have noted, that move from St. Anthony had big benefits for me!
WRITING TO THE PRESIDENT
After high school, my father moved up in the Western Union hierarchy. He went from being a motorcycle delivery boy to being the manager of one of the Western Union storefront offices in San Francisco. I have in my mind that the office he managed was on Market Street, but I could be wrong. I assume that the office my father managed is the office shown in the picture at the top of this blog posting, and if yuou scale the picture up, and if you then look closely, the front door of that office suggests that customers should check with the Main Office, at 711 Market Street, after 12:00 p.m. Who knows where the pictured office was? Could there have been more than one office on Market Street? Of course, I don't know, and my Dad is not around to fill in the gaps. I also question whether that sign on the door is actually correct. Did that office really close at noon? That's what it seems to say. It says that the office will be closed after 12:00 p.m., not 12:00 a.m. The picture indicates that the photo was taken at a little before 4:00 in the afternoon, and I somehow doubt that my Dad came back to a closed-down office to have himself photo-immortalized on his motorcycle.
At any rate, in the 1940s, Western Union provided main line communication services for the nation. As a communications provider, Western Union was at least as important as the various telephone companies, which were still somewhat new. After the United States entered the war, Western Union handled a lot of war-related communications for the U.S. Government, and my Dad, as the manager of a small branch office in San Francisco, thought that the government could make a lot more effective use of Western Union's services. Thus, my father wrote a detailed letter to President Roosevelt, outlining the positive changes that my father recommended, and how those changes could help the war effort.
The President did not, personally, respond. However, the President did refer my Dad's letter to the Federal Communications Commission, and the FCC contacted him, and offered him a job in Washington, D.C., to help the FCC and the war effort. As you might imagine, my father jumped at the chance. I was, perhaps, one year old, and he bundled my mother, and me, into a car of some kind, and drove all the way across the country to take this job. When he showed up in the FCC's offices in Washington, D.C., he was asked to fill out an official application, which he did. However, the application revealed that my father's education ended when he graduated from Polytechnic High School, and the FCC told him that he was not qualified and couldn't be hired without a college degree.
This was, of course, kind of bad news!!
My father, apparently, was able to survive economically because he was hired back, on some sort of temporary basis, in a Western Union office in Washington, D.C.. While he worked for Western Union, he didn't give up on the FCC. He became just as persistent in wooing the FCC as he had been in wooing my mother. Finally, he was given the job that he had been offered, and he made friends in the FCC that stayed with him his entire life. When my Dad became a lawyer, much later in his life, when he was living in Santa Cruz, he quickly became associated with a Washington, D.C. law firm that was run by one of the friends he made back in the FCC during the war.
WRITING HIS WAY BACK TO THE WEST COAST
My Dad did serve in the war, as a radio officer in the United States Navy, and he was based on Espiritu Santo, in the South Pacific. After the war, he got a job with the Farnsworth Corporation, which had taken over a bankrupt firm with factories and offices in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My sister, Nancy, was born in Fort Wayne, and while I barely remember it, I do know that it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. My mother, reportedly, did not like it one bit. She wanted to move back to the San Francisco Bay Area, not only because she liked the weather better, but also because her friends and family lived there.
Accordingly, my father kept his eyes out for job opportunities back home. One time, he travelled for Farnsworth to a trade show held somewhere in Florida (as I'm remembering the story), and as he toured through the various booths he came across the booth of the Lenkurt Electric Company, based in San Carlos, California. According to Wikipedia, Lenkurt probably had about seventy-five employees in 1947, which is probably when my father became aware of the company. He reviewed their various instructional and promotional materials, as displayed in the Lenkurt booth, and made an immediate pitch to be hired, telling the founders that he could much improve their publications and other materials. He was just a better writer!
Unfortunately, my father's pitch was rejected - and not because Len Erickson and Kurt Appert didn't believe him. They just couldn't afford to take on a new employee; at least, that's what they told my Dad, and that's what I understand he told my mother, when he got back to Fort Wayne.
I don't know exactly what their conversation was, and who pushed whom, but the fact is that my father decided to quit his job with Farnsworth, and he and my Mom headed back to the Bay Area, bringing my sister and me with them. Dad had no new job waiting, but when he and my mother arrived, my Dad went to Lenkurt and offered to work for free, to prove to the founders that he was worth it. He proved it! He essentially wrote himself back to the West Coast. Dad was hired by Lenkurt, and ended up as their Vice President for International Sales. He left when Lenkurt was bought out by General Telephone and Electronics, which is when he and my mother moved to Santa Cruz.
"POSSIBILITY" IS MY CATEGORY - THANKS TO MY DAD
As already indicated in that earlier blog posting, my commitment to "possibility," and to the "anything is possible" approach to life, came from my Dad. That book I mentioned, As A Man Thinketh, was my father's gift to me on my eighteenth birthday. The stories I have just recounted well illustrate how the message of that book, that anything is possible, was convincingly demonstrated by my father's own life.
The "you can do anything" message was a message constantly repeated to me during my growing-up years. However, it was a message applied as a "corrective," because my impulse, faced with any challenge or obstacle, was always to say, "I can't do it."
I would say, "I can't do it," and my father would then tell me I could do it, and he would make me do it, but even if I accomplished whatever task it was that he required me to do, I never really believed my Dad, and I never internalized his "you can do anything" admonition. At least, not until I had the experience I describe below.
Here is the story, which is absolutely true. This is a story about my Dad that really has me at the center, and I think it's my favorite story, since the events I am going to describe fundamentally and dramatically changed my life, as I finally accepted the truth of what my father had been trying for years to get me to see. Ironically, I learned that I could do anything by proving just the opposite, by proving my inability to what my father was asking me to do.
My Dad loved to carry out various home improvement projects, particularly if they involved electricity, but we did a lot of plumbing projects, too. I was generally called into service as a helper. One day, My Dad asked me to help him do some electrical wiring under our house at 740 Center Drive, in Palo Alto, a very nice ranch-style home that has now been torn down and replaced by three different new monster houses.
To do this wiring job, we needed to go under the house, and there was a little hatch in the floor in a closet off the main hallway. That is where we went down into the crawl space. I think my Dad, then forty-five or forty-six years old, must certainly have had difficulties crawling over to where he was going to be doing the new wiring; that crawl was easier for me, and my job was to be there to help carry the tools, and to shine a flashlight on the wires, so my Dad could see what he was doing. My Dad was lying on his back, wedged into that tight crawl space, dirt underneath him and cobwebbed floor joists above; I was there, ready to help and assist. After a few minutes, my father suddenly realized that he had forgotten to bring the diagonal cutters, the wire cutters, that were an absolutely essential tool needed to complete the job.
"Gary," he said, "go to the workshop and bring me the diagonal cutters." The workshop was in a completely different building, and it had a work bench, and a photo darkroom, and lots of tools of all kinds. I knew exactly the tool that my father wanted, but I also knew that I was not going to be able to find those diagonal cutters.
"Dad," I told him, "I don't think I can find them." My Dad got irritated. Of course he did! This was a typical Gary A. Patton response: "I can't do it." Not yet really mad, my father just said, "they're in the workshop; they have red handles; go get them."
I said, "OK," but I knew that I would fail. And I did fail. I searched everywhere, and as I suspected, the wirecutters were not in the workshop. It was with some trepidation that I returned, crawling back to my Dad, to tell him that I couldn't find the diagonal cutters.
Now, my Dad was more than a little upset. He definitely did not want to have to crawal through the dirt and lift himself through that little hatch himself, when I could do that much more easily. "Gary," he told me, "they are right on the workbench. Now go get them and bring them back."
Of course, I had searched, and I knew they weren't there, but I told my Dad I'd try, though I alerted him to the fact that I would almost certainly be unsuccessful.
And I was unsuccessful. As I knew I would be. I looked everywhere on the workbench, and everywhere else, too, and the diagonal cutters just weren't there. My father wasn't always right; he did make mistakes, which is what I knew he had done this time, but I was really nervous about having to deliver that bad news.
I returned through the hatch and crawled out to where my father was still lying on his back, waiting for the wirecutters. "I couldn't find them, Dad," I said. He was just as mad as I knew he would be.
"Look, Gary," my father told me. "They are on the workbench, right next to my soldering iron. Now, go get them."
They weren't there. Of course. As I knew they wouldn't be, since I had already been looking everywhere, including on the workbench next to the soldering iron. When I came back the third time with my "I can't do it" response, my father was totally exasperated. He turned himself over; crawling on his elbows through the dirt, he returned to the hatch and heaved himself through. I followed. I stayed about three steps behind him as he went across our patio to the workshop. He went through the door, and by the time I had followed him inside he was at the workbench. I got there just in time to see him reach on to the workbench, right by his soldering iron, and pick up the diagonal cutters, the ones with the red handles. They were right where he said they were.
We went back and finished the job. I don't think he yelled at me. He didn't hit me, or bawl me out, but what had happened proved to me, more than any speech ever could, that my mind was what determined what I could, and couldn't do. I had decided I couldn't find the wirecutters, and I proved it.
I learned, right then, that my father was right, and that he'd been right all along. If I could make myself NOT do something, by telling myself I couldn't do it, and if I could make something become impossible because I told myself it was impossible, then I could do the opposite, too. I could do just what my father always said was true, and I could do anything, just because I decided I would.
MY DAD WAS A LAWYER
My Dad, who never went to college, was a great writer. My Dad, who came from a poor family in which his father had abandoned his mother, made a wonderful life for my mother, me, and my two sisters and my brother. After he retired from Lenkurt, and spent some time as a kind of "gentleman farmer" in the Santa Cruz mountains, my father decided he wanted to be a lawyer. He wrote and talked himself into Santa Clara Law School, when he was almost fifty years old. Despite his lack of a college degree, the law school took him. He graduated number two in his law school class, and he was a really great lawyer.
My Dad could do anything!
POSTSCRIPT: WHAT'S IN A NAME?
I was born in 1943, and at some point, by the time I was six or seven years old, I started asking my parents why they named me "Gary." There was no "Gary" among our relatives, and I really wished that I could have been named after my Dad. I would have liked to have been named, "Philips." That was a family name. My father's mother's maiden name was Clara Olney Philips.
"Why did you name me, Gary?" I asked that question on numerous occasions as I was growing up, and I never really got what I thought was a very good answer. Candidly, I felt that my parents more or less dodged the issue. Usually, they said that they had "just liked the name." A few times, I remember, my mother told me that "Gary Cooper was just so handsome; I think that's why we named you Gary." I never was much convinced.
Naturally, all the kids in our family knew the story about the movie dog that my father had won in the American Boy contest, and I think we had all read his winning letter ourselves. After the family moved to Santa Cruz, my mother kept pictures and various memorabilia of various kinds in an unsorted pile in a little cabinet in our front hall, and that included a clipping of the story about Geri from American Boy.
One day, when I was home from college, I decided for some reason that I would like to read that famous letter once again, and I went to look for it. It wasn't there. It had been in that pile of miscellaneous stuff in that front hall cabinet, but now it was missing. I asked my Mom, and she had no explanation, but then she said, sort of out of the blue, "You know, winning Geri [which she pronounced, "Gary"] was one of the greatest things that ever happened to your father." She must have known, immediately, what she had done, because I saw a look of panic on her face, as she realized that she had finally revealed to me the actual answer to my often-asked question, the question that she had always dodged, whenever I asked it. "Why did you name me "Gary?' Well, it was now clear to me; I was named for the dog. Never had it occurred to me that "Geri," the dog's name, was pronounced, "Gary." Now I knew!
I never talked about it with my Dad; at least I don't remember doing that. I was kind of stunned when I first realized that I had been named for a dog. Then, I thought about it a little more. I thought about what winning that dog had meant to my father. It was a pretty wonderful thing. It proved he could do anything.
Geri was a really great dog! I am convinced of that, and I like to think that when my Dad named me after Geri, he was hoping that I'd be great, too.
My own hope is that I have done OK, and to the degree I have, I want to credit my parents, including my father, quite specifically. Today's a good day to say it once again:
Thank you Dad. Thank you for everything!
(1), (2) and (3) Gary A. Patton, personal photos
(4) - Portrait of Philips B. Patton by Susan Kahn (2001)
Kit Beethoven June 21, 2020 at 9:08 PM
A wonderful portrait of your father, and at the same time, of you. Very moving and full of wonder. Inspiring. Beautiful writing too. Thank you.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Government asks schoolchildren to define their gender - and gives them 24 options to choose from
Parents have complained that the form could 'confuse' teenagers
The form gives many alternatives to the traditional male and female categories Photo: Alamy
By Adam Boult
11:49AM GMT 28 Jan 2016
Schoolchildren in Brighton have been asked to complete a government questionnaire that asks them to describe their gender - with 24 options to choose from.
Alongside the traditional male and female categories, the form also gives options including Agender, Bi-gender, Tomboy, Androgynous and 'Rather not say', as potential answers to 'which of these best describes how you define your gender?'
• How should parents react when children question their gender roles?
The survey, for pupils aged 13-18, has been sent to every school in Brighton and Hove by the Office of the Children's Commissioner.
Anne Longfield OBE, Children's Commissioner for England, said: "We want to know how gender matters to young people: what does gender mean to them; how does it affect their lives; what do they want to change?"
The survey has been praised by trans campaigners who say it gives young people the opportunity to express themselves.
Transgender acitivist Sophie Cook said: "The teenage years are terrible for all of us, but if you are battling gender dysphoria as well you can feel so isolated and alone and confused."
"I really think it could help young people who are going through this to be given a list of terms that they may find relate to what they are going through."
However, parents of at one school objected to the survey, the Brighton Argus reports, complaining they were not asked permission before their children were given it, amid fears it could 'confuse' youngsters.
Blatchington Mill School in Brighton Photo: Brighton Argus/Solent
Ashley Harrold, head teacher at Blatchington Mill School, defended the questionnaire saying: "We're incredibly passionate about ensuring that every student feels safe and welcome at our school. When it comes to gender identity it is a real and valid concern for a number of students.
"For us, anything that prevents students feeling happy, from feeling confident in themselves and from feeling accepted by their peers is something we feel the curriculum should address.
"Raising students awareness of the wider spectrum of gender identity is important in building an inclusive and tolerant society."
• Rise in child transgender referrals
The number of children aged 10 or under who were referred to the NHS because of transgender feelings more than quadrupled in the five years to 2015.
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust said referrals over the period included 47 children aged five or under, and two children just three years old.
The trust, the UK's only centre specialising in gender issues in under 18s said that in total, the number of under 11s referred to the unit has risen from 19 in 2009-10 to 77 in 2014-15.
A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council, which had forwarded the survey to schools at the request of the Office of the Children's Commissioner, said: "The survey is designed to explore young people's experiences of gender.
"We think the findings from this survey will be useful in our work helping all our children and young people feel good about themselves, achieve their potential and challenge gender stereotyping and sexism.
"Blatchington Mill has a well-deserved national reputation as a beacon of best practice for the work it does on LGBT related issues as part of its personal, social and health education curriculum.
"We want all our young people to feel comfortable with who they are, to understand that the notion of gender can go beyond the traditional idea of simply being either male and female, and to recognise that people can use a range of terms to describe their gender identity."
thetelegraphnews
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A couple of months ago I offered to give a talk on Children and e-books. Who is reading them, what they are reading them on, where the books come from, etc.
A lot has been written on adults and ebooks, a bit less on teens and ebooks and next to nothing on kids and ebooks except for the pieces on pre-schoolers and iPads.
Clearly, the organizers of the conference thought that there wasn't enough discussion on this topic and agreed to have me speak. But it turns out to be a Catch-22. What do I speak on, if there isn't enough information out there?
The print-oriented PDF is 38 pages long. A single-column 6x9" PDF designed for online reading is also available at http://citesandinsights.info/civ12i12on.pdf. That version is 73 pages long. Both versions include bookmarks for all sections and subsections, one reason they're fairly large.
Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small Scale Community in a Large Scale World introduces an antidote to faceless, placeless sprawl — small scale neighborhoods where people can easily know one another, where empty nesters and single householders with far-flung families can find friendship or a helping hand nearby, and where children can have shirt-tail aunties and uncles just beyond their front gate.
Includes links to media pieces that discuss books.
The phone once coveted by the elite and the powerful is becoming an object of ridicule as Androids and iPhones corner the smartphone market.
Eric Lomax, a former British soldier who was tortured by the Japanese while he was a prisoner during World War II and half a century later forgave one of his tormentors — an experience he recounted in a memoir, "The Railway Man" — died on Monday in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England. He was 93. Full article in the NYT.
Photographer Edward Curtis decided to chronicle the experience of the vanishing Native American tribes at the end of the 19th century. It was an unbelievably ambitious project that would define Curtis, his work and his legacy.
Readers who sigh at the names "Super Chief" and "Zephyr," and who remember the meal Cary Grant ate on the train in North by Northwest , may find this book fulfilling their wildest dreams. In an attempt to "preserve a record of one of the ways we used to eat," rail fan and Penn State professor Porterfield presents a detailed history of train dining. Beginning as an alternative to railroad station eateries, train dining reached its peak in 1930, when 1732 railroad dining cars were registered with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and all but ended in 1971 with telegrams like the May 1 order to Union Pacific to shut its passenger lines and make way for Amtrak. Model railroaders and social historians will find the 150 photographs and illustrations invaluable: a photo spread with dimensions of the pantry of the New York Central's Twentieth Century Limited, a sample 1920s dinner menu from the Milwaukee Railroad's Pioneer Limited, descriptions of staff sleeping quarters. The second half of the book offers 250 recipes from 48 railroad lines, featuring early-20th-century fare like Lobster Newburg New York Central, Poinsettia Salad-Merchant's Limited and Baked Potato Pennsylvania. For authentic American versions of lamb fricassee, deviled eggs and blanc mange presented without campiness or apology, this is the source.
See video trailer for book.


text:
Shenasnameh kallas en typ av identitetshandling som används i Iran. De började utfärdas 1925 och utfärdas för alla iranska medborgare oavsett var de bor. Shenasnameh är en liten bok med familjeuppgifter och ett unikt identitetsnummer för personen som behålls hela livet (likt personnummer). Gamla shenasnameh från shahtiden byttes i regel ut under 1990-talet, de gamla hade ett lejon utanpå medan de nya har den kalligrafiska texten Allah.

Externa länkar
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Personliga dokument
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Welcome to this week's edition of DISNEY Reporter! Each week we cover the highlights of what is going on in the Disney and geek worlds. This week the news kicks off with a lot of Black Panther updates. It pivots to some updates from around the world at Disney Parks of things that have happened and also that will be happening, thanks to the D23 Expo Japan. We hope you enjoy this week's edition of DISNEY Reporter! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!


There are many sites out there that are useful, but also a lot that are less so. So to help our readers find the best resources available out on the Internet, we list some of our favorite websites below.
Product reviews, education and complete ammunition ballistics charts. Compare ammunition from all manufacturers on one easy chart, sorted by caliber.
Modern Self Protection is a web site and Podcast designed for every-day people to learn how to defend themselves. Most content is designed to be used today to make your life safer. Ben uses his knowledge gained from military, law enforcement, and anti-terrorism work from around the world to teach you to protect yourself.


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Posts tagged 'Swisscom '
News tagged: Swisscom
Roaming of people and things: How operators can get value from 5G
Is 5G worthy of the hype? We've seen commercial deployments (in trial and in reality) this year, says Mikaël Schachne, chief marketing officer and vice president of mobility and IoT at BICS, including a significant one from China earlier this month in which all three of the country's state-backed operators roll out the new mobile service. (more…)
Swisscom: 5G in research, for public safety and for business customers
The School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg (HTA-FR), a member of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, and Swisscom will in future work together with the School on 5G projects in the area of Network Function Virtualisation (NFV).
Ericsson, Swisscom and Qualcomm make huge step towards nationwide 5G coverage in Switzerland
An industry progressive step in 5G has taken place in Switzerland on October 31 when the first over-the-air, Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) 5G data call was successfully carried out by Ericsson, Swisscom, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated. (more…)
First 5G-compliant charging system enabling telcos to monetise 5G services, claimed by Matrixx Software
Matrixx Software, a company specialising in transforming global commerce, has introduced what it says is the industry's first 5G digital commerce platform including a 5G 3GPP-compliant Converged Charging System (CCS). (more…)
Dominik Müller named as new CEO of Swisscom Broadcast
The present head of Network, IT & Operations is to take over as CEO of Swisscom Broadcast following the retirement of Jean-Paul de Weck, who has been at the helm of Swisscom Broadcast for twelve years. Dominik Müller will commence his new role on 15 November 2019. (more…)
Inside Swisscom's mainframe replacement project
Mainframe replacement is a phrase that turns the blood to ice in the veins of most telecoms IT professionals but these ambitious projects are starting to happen with greater regularity as mainframes reach their fourth – and sometimes fifth – decade of operation and the cost of operating them starts outstrip the risk associated with replacement. VanillaPlus managing editor George Malim recently interviewed Markus Tschumper, the head of general IT services at Swisscom, to learn about the communications service provider's recent migration of traditional mainframe workloads to the cloud, running on a software defined mainframe from LzLabs.
Ericsson and Swisscom bring 5G indoors
The call, made on July 1 between Ericsson's office in central Bern and Swisscom's office in the nearby town of Liebefeld, is the latest tech milestone for the Swiss service provider's 5G network rollout since it became the first in Europe to switch on a commercial 5G network – fully powered by Ericsson – in April this year. (more…)
No need for industry to wait for 5G
5G continues to climb up the hype side of the inflated expectations curve and extravagant claims are being made about early deployments, says freelance technology writer, Bob Emmerson. (more…)
Ericsson and Swisscom in European commercial 5G
Ericsson and Swisscom, the telecommunications service provider in Switzerland, have switched on the large-scale commercial 5G network in Europe to support commercially available smartphones. (more…)
Swisscom and Qualcomm launch 5G commercial services network in Europe
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated and Swisscom, together with device manufacturers including Oppo, LG Electronics, Askey and WNC announced the arrival of commercial 5G services in Europe with the launch of Swisscom's 5G network. (more…)
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Komeeda is proud to invite you the evening of June 3rd to break fast and help support UNRWA's efforts to help the people of Gaza during the holy month and beyond. Your ticket price will be a donation to UNRWA to continue their work and support the people in Gaza who are desperately in need. This menu will showcase a molecular gastronomy interpretation of the Palestinian cuisine.
Grilled Halloumi cheese that is paired with blood oranges to conclude the meal. This dish will be served with "white coffee" an orange blossom hot beverage.
The culinary arts has been a gateway for many to enter the workforce in the states, and for some, it has become a way of life. For Nas Jab, Pa-Latino Plate is his canvas for telling the story and life experiences as a migrant to many regions around the world through food. Pa-Latino Plate is a blend of the Palestinian and Latinx cultures and how the flavors come together to share his narrative. The mission is to share the unheard stories displaying the commonalities within cultures through food. Enjoy some of the most fascinating flavors you've had with Pa-Latino Plate!
"The olive tree to my family, or to any Palestinian family, is more precious than me, because it's older than me," Nas said. "It's fed [my father], it's fed his grandfather. This is how they view it when settlers come and they offer trees." Extending an olive branch to visiting peoples is an apt metaphor for the ideas Nasser Jab began to mull over — he wanted to connect people from different cultures, especially those whose stories were misunderstood, and he knew he could do it through food. Eventually, he got his chance after he opened up his own restaurant on the Lower East Side and catalyzed a conversation around the Palestinian perspective with all people from a full-circle audience. His food is focused on the culture, the heritage, the roots of the ingredients and the dishes that come together in his kitchen to your plate.


These bags are only made for VéloSolex. The closure is made by straps, the bags are held by hooks and springs.
Major asset of the bags, they are doubly reinforced with two inner cartons on each side.
Four rivets of lateral fastenings allow the cartons to be maintained.
These bags are made of soft leather, this allows an elasticity without aging provoking cracks.
Both bags are equipped with hanses allowing use for races.
Sold in pairs, with two springs.


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Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014
Mona Evans
It isn't often that you can find in one place a serene aurora, a violent Sun and an eclipsed one, and both a stellar nursery and a stellar graveyard. However the Royal Observatory Greenwich provides such sights every year when it's time to exhibit the winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.
The competition has come a long way since its 2009 birth. Then there were a few hundred entries in four categories. This year there were two and a half thousand entries in seven categories.
"Aurora over a Glacier Lagoon"
Aurora photographs regularly feature in the competition. They're so popular that it's even been suggested that there should be a separate category for them. This year, for the first time, the overall winner is an aurora picture. And it's a beauty.
At the awards evening, we saw a video with the winning images projected onto the planetarium dome. In the video the aurora looked very pale, which I liked. Bright colors usually feature in an aurora photograph, but that's rarely how you see them. The camera isn't lying, but our eyes see things differently. They respond poorly to color in dim light. The camera however, as long as the shutter is open, can keep collecting light.
The online photo shows more green than the video did, but it's still properly subdued. I love the symmetry of the graceful arcs of the heavenly aurora mirrored in the water. The jagged glacial rock, snowy landscape and subtlety of the colors all contribute to James Woodend's exquisite picture.
Alexandra Hart admits to being addicted to looking at the Sun — through special filters, of course. She gets withdrawal symptoms during spells of cloudy weather, so she must find living in England something of a trial.
The image that won the Our Solar System category is titled "Ripples in a Pond" because Hart felt that the active region "resembled the imprint created when stones hit the surface of a pond." But an active region of the Sun is no pond. The photograph shows the turmoil of the violent forces in an area several times the size of the Earth. The sense of movement and power is emphasized by the filament that rises and extends over the visible edge of the Sun.
The Sun seemed grand, but more poised, in Eugen Kamenew's "Hybrid Solar Eclipse", the winner of People and Space. It was a rare hybrid eclipse which began as annular eclipse at sunrise. In an annular eclipse a ring of sunlight shows up around the Moon. Then the eclipse became total. In this photo, taken in Kenya soon after totality, the figure on the hillside is dramatically silhouetted against the splendid crescent of the returning Sun.
The category People and Space is for "photos that include people in a creative and original way." Kamenew's entry was certainly a worthy and memorable winner.
The overall winner of the competition in 2009 was a photograph of the Horsehead Nebula. In 2014 this starbirth region provided two category winners. Bill Snyder's (USA) version won in the Deep Space category and the Young Astronomy Photographer winners included a wider view showing the dark nebula, red emission nebula and the Flame Nebula. There is usually just one winner here. But unusually, this photo and another that was Highly Commended were the joint work of US twins Shishir and Shashank Dholakia. One of the judges commented: "The star colors are beautifully controlled in this image. The detail in the horse's head and the Flame Nebula are particularly good, too."
Stars are born in the region of the Horsehead, but J-P Metsävanio (Finland) was Highly Commended for his image of a supernova remnant. It's part of the Veil Nebula in the constellation Cygnus and was created in the explosion of a massive star at the end of its life. As the shock wave travels, it may trigger star formation in other nebulae. Since the material is rich is heavy elements, these are recycled into the new stars.
"Moon behind the Trees"
The final photograph I'm going to mention is a little charmer by Emily Jeremy (UK), aged 12. Her Highly Commended image is simple, but beautiful, and seems to bring the Earth and the Moon together.
Aurorae - Polar Light Shows
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text:
Phytomedicines (medicines derived from plants) for sickle cell disease
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020 Sep 25;9(9):CD004448. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004448.pub7.
Oluseyi Oniyangi 1 , Damian H Cohall 2
1 Paediatrics Department, National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria.
2 Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, St Michael, Barbados.
Background: Sickle cell disease, a common recessively inherited haemoglobin disorder, affects people from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Mediterranean basin, Indian subcontinent, Caribbean and South America. It is associated with complications and a reduced life expectancy. Phytomedicines (medicine derived from plants in their original state) encompass many of the plant remedies from traditional healers which the populations most affected would encounter. Laboratory research and limited clinical trials have suggested positive effects of phytomedicines both in vivo and in vitro. However, there has been little systematic appraisal of their benefits. This is an updated version of a previously published Cochrane Review.
Objectives: To assess the benefits and risks of phytomedicines in people with sickle cell disease of all types, of any age, in any setting.
Search methods: We searched the Cochrane Cystic Fibrosis and Genetic Disorders Group Haemoglobinopathies Trials Register, the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register (ISRCTN), the Allied and Complimentary Medicine Database (AMED), ClinicalTrials.gov and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). Dates of most recent searches: Cochrane Cystic Fibrosis and Genetic Disorders Haemoglobinopathies Trials Register: 17 March 2020; ISRCTN: 19 April 2020; AMED: 18 May 2020; ClinicalTrials.gov: 24 April 2020; and the WHO ICTRP: 27 July 2017.
Selection criteria: Randomised or quasi-randomised trials with participants of all ages with sickle cell disease, in all settings, comparing the administration of phytomedicines, by any mode to placebo or conventional treatment, including blood transfusion and hydroxyurea.
Data collection and analysis: Both authors independently assessed trial quality and extracted data.
Main results: Three trials (212 participants) of three phytomedicines: Niprisan® (also known as Nicosan®), Ciklavit® and a powdered extract of Pfaffia paniculata were included. The Phase IIB (pivotal) trial suggests that Niprisan® may be effective in reducing episodes of severe painful sickle cell disease crisis over a six-month period (low-quality evidence). It did not appear to affect the risk of severe complications or the level of anaemia (low-quality evidence). The single trial of Cajanus cajan (Ciklavit®) reported a possible benefit to individuals with painful crises, and a possible adverse effect (non-significant) on the level of anaemia (low-quality evidence). We are uncertain of the effect of Pfaffia paniculata on the laboratory parameters and symptoms of SCD (very low-quality of evidence). No adverse effects were reported with Niprisan® and Pfaffia paniculata (low- to very low-quality evidence).
Authors' conclusions: While Niprisan® appeared to be safe and effective in reducing severe painful crises over a six-month follow-up period, further trials are required to assess its role in managing people with SCD and the results of its multicentre trials are awaited. Currently, no conclusions can be made regarding the efficacy of Ciklavit® and the powdered root extract of Pfaffia paniculata in managing SCD. Based on the published results for Niprisan® and in view of the limitations in data collection and analysis of the three trials, phytomedicines may have a potential beneficial effect in reducing painful crises in SCD. This needs to be further validated in future trials. More trials with improved study design and data collection are required on the safety and efficacy of phytomedicines used in managing SCD.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01771731.
Copyright © 2020 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Amaranthaceae / chemistry
Anemia / chemically induced
Anemia, Sickle Cell / blood
Anemia, Sickle Cell / drug therapy*
Antisickling Agents / adverse effects
Antisickling Agents / therapeutic use*
Cajanus
Clinical Trials, Phase II as Topic
Phytotherapy* / adverse effects
Plant Extracts / adverse effects
Plant Extracts / therapeutic use*
Plant Roots / chemistry
Antisickling Agents
Cajanus cajan extract
Niprisan


text:
Solar power in DuPage
By Seth A. on September 21, 2006 3:57 PM
Sounds good to me: what's the downside (if any)?
Sun may help keep suburbs' water running A 2-acre batch of solar panels may soon be seen by drivers on the Eisenhower Expressway under a proposal by Chicago and the DuPage Water Commission.
The photovoltaic field, which converts sunshine to electricity, would be used to help power a $12.9 million backup power facility on the city's West Side. It would be one of the largest in the Midwest, officials said.
The Water Commission wants to build the plant for the Lexington Pumping Station along the Eisenhower, with some of the electrical power potentially being produced by solar energy. Chicago would install the field of solar panels.
Since 1997, commission officials have proposed building a backup power plant to ensure that DuPage communities would still get lake water during power outages. While all of the commission's member communities--except Roselle and Willowbrook--have retained their own community wells as backup water sources, most DuPage towns' water departments now have shifted their operational capabilities to strictly handling water distribution and not supply.
Commission officials originally had recommended locating backup power at the Elmhurst pumping station. But after a vulnerability assessment in 2004, they recommended constructing backup plants at both the Lexington and Elmhurst locations.
"Nothing in our contract with our customer utilities requires the DuPage Water Commission to do any kind of backup, but the water purchase agreements say that the commission will make its best efforts to provide water," said Robert L. Martin, the commission's general manager.
The commission voted in February to move forward with the long-proposed project at Lexington, and it subsequently entered into negotiations with city officials on the design and location of the diesel-powered generating plant.
During discussions, city officials proposed installing 7,142 solar panels, covering more than 100,000 square feet, on top of the 30-million-gallon underground reservoir next to the Lexington pumping station.
Spatz said no formal agreement has been struck yet between the city and the agency for the plant or solar field. The current agreement is being reviewed by the commission's attorneys.
Chicago officials have offered to pay half of the backup plant's cost, up to $8.5 million, commission officials said.
While the Lexington pumping station serves the water commission, the city's water system also benefits from it. And most of the other pumping stations in the city's water system have some kind of on-site power generation. According to a map provided by the commission's engineers, eight of Chicago's 12 pumping stations currently have backup power generated on-site, either by diesel or steam power.
(photo not of DuPage, obviously)
Tags: Energy, /water
This page contains a single entry by Seth A. published on September 21, 2006 3:57 PM.
Torture of Liberty was the previous entry in this blog.
Afternoon Autumn Strolls is the next entry in this blog.


text:
Evan Low: On a Political High
by Andrew Davis
This article shared 7413 times since Thu Feb 1, 2007
Campbell ( Calif. ) City Councilman Evan Low is not your average politician. First of all, he is all of 23 years old. And he's Asian-American. And he's openly gay.
Low—who won a seat on the council in November—is symbolic of an emerging and diverse America that is gradually making an impact in various areas. He recently talked with Windy City Times about his city, coming out and being a role model.
Windy City Times: Tell me a little about Campbell. I don't think too many people know about it.
Evan Low: [ Laughs ] You're right!
We're in the heart of Silicon Valley; we border San Jose. There are a lot of high-tech companies here, such as Netflix and eBay. There are about 40,000 people and it's a nice suburb in the San Francisco Bay area. We're also the youngest city in Silicon Valley; the average age of residents is about 35.
WCT: So it's kind of fitting that a young person like yourself is on the city council. Why did you decide to run?
EL: I think it's always important for folks to get involved. Growing up, my father was always active in the community. ( I'm a fifth-generation Californian. ) He was always active in public service; he was involved in different clubs. I went to different functions—but it wasn't until college when I asked how I can give back to my community. I asked myself, 'What's the ultimate form of public service?' and it is serving in public office. You can create change and see how things can really work.
The other fire in the belly [ involves ] diversity and representation. My city did not have someone representing the newer family—and Asians are the second most populous demographic in [ Campbell ] . We need to address the needs of all the citizens.
WCT: What was your platform when you ran?
EL: One thing I talked about was libraries. It's important to have a good [ foundation ] for education, EPI scores and even property value.
Also, our city and various government organizations work independently but I thought that it was important that we work together. Instead of schools taking care of school-related issues, for example, I think that it's important for us to all work together on things that are important.
Another issue is innovation. In our neighboring city of Mountain View, for example, Google is providing free wireless service to the whole city; in Cupertino, Apple is providing free recycling. Talk about collaboration and partnership! It's important to work together to achieve a common goal.
WCT: When you ran, did anyone bring up either your age or your sexual orientation?
EL: Those two issues were brought up as well as ethnicity. I got hate mail saying, 'We don't want any of the homosexual agenda' as well as hate mail saying, 'We want American interests. We don't want Chinese interests.' It created an interesting situation, because I feel that I'm more native than most people.
It's an interesting dynamic because on the surface I look like a perpetual foreigner, if you will. That's why I think it's important for us to be in the public light and try to make positive changes.
If you think about what the city council really does, in terms of our residents, we deal with things like potholes, fences and traffic signals. Those are not gay or straight issues. They are not Asian or Caucasian issues. They are everyday issues that affect every aspect of our lives. With the hate mail, you just have to take it for what it is; you can't please everyone.
WCT: How long have you been openly gay?
EL: I came out to my family a couple of years ago.
WCT: And how did they react?
EL: My father really didn't care. We actually joked around and said that [ my homosexuality ] is partially his fault because of genetics.
It's an interesting dynamic particularly within the Chinese community. Generally, they are not receptive of the LGBT community, and I think that's why we haven't seen that many gay Asians. There's this perception of pride [ that leads many ] to keep their orientations to themselves.
So I was fortunate that my family was receptive but, then again, we are fifth-generation Americans. For immigrants, I think it's generally a long time coming; some immigrants don't even believe that there are gay Asians.
WCT: Do you feel like you're a role model for young adults, the Asian-American community and/or the LGBT community?
EL: Yes. Well, what's interesting is that it's a challenge. If you ask an African-American who his hero is, he could say Martin Luther King, Jr., or Malcolm X. A Latino could mention Cesar Chavez and many others. However, within the Asian community we really can't name a hero; sometimes, young people will say Jackie Chan or Jet Li—and they're actors and there are stereotypes there.
I didn't really have someone who was young, gay and Asian who was involved in politics to look up to. After the election, I got an overwhelming number of correspondence from folks all over the United States who asked things like, 'I'm Asian and want to pursue a career in politics, but I'm not out to my family. How do I come out?' Hopefully, this [ win ] can be kind of a catalyst.
This election was not about me. It was about the communities I represent; youth, Asian Americans and the LGBT community have all been disenfranchised. It's important for all of us to have a strong voice.
WCT: Do you have larger political aspirations?
EL: I've only served a couple months so far. I think that it's important that we lay a pipeline that will allow more [ LGBT ] politicians to run. I'm just trying to do the best job that I can at this point and time.
WCT: What's been the most surreal moment for you during this whole journey?
EL: I think the overwhelming amount of letters and correspondence that I've received has [ been surreal ] . The amount of optimism that so many people have expressed has been great. It was very heart-warming.
Quigley commends progress in FDA LGBTQI+ blood donation draft guidance 2023-01-27
--From a press release - Washington, DC — Today, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05), Vice-Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, released the following statement commending long-awaited updates to the FDA's blood donation guidance for LGBTQI+ ...
Equality Illinois responds to violence, murder of Black and Brown trans people on the south side 2023-01-25
--From a press release - Statement by Myles Brady Davis, Director of Communications at Equality Illinois, the state's civil rights organization for LGBTQ+ people, regarding the violences and murders of Black and Brown trans people on the south side of Chicago: ...
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Wipeout in Edmonton.....a winter pastime.
The Ice Festival on Whyte Ave.
Does anyone have this picture?
Edmonton's exotic, unique and ageless trees and shrubs!
Second C2E Snap Edmonton Photo Contest...Stay Tuned!
Announcing the Top 50 Snap Edmonton 1 Contest Finalists!
Announcing the 'Best in Category' Snap Edm Contest Winners!
How much will this view change in the next 5-10 years?
Connect2Edmonton's "Uniquely Edmonton" Photo Contest - will you be participating?
THANK-YOU "Uniquely Edmonton" Photo Contest #2 Sponsors!
ETS 100 Anniversary at Churchill Sq.


The Israeli startup's hardware was targeted at tablets and smartphones specifically, and could not only offer the kinds of background defocus that's popular on low aperture lenses paired with DSLRs, but could also help achieve better low-light performance, ideal for taking pictures indoors or at night without using flash.
Today, the iPhone's camera is by far one its biggest advantages, relative to nearly all other smartphones except, perhaps, the Galaxy S. Having worked in the industry (Motorola), I've grown tired of comparisons to DSLRs, since no smartphone camera has delivered performance anywhere near that level. But that's also what makes this exciting: the wide margin left for improvement, and the fact that Apple is one of the companies that can engineer such an advance (with help, in this case).


text:
Supriya Ghosh
A teacher by profession and engineer by trade
Manager Season
Dates 16 Oct 1976 – 21 Oct 1976
Champion Cincinnati Reds
MVP Johnny Bench (Cincinnati)
Umpires Lee Weyer (NL), Lou DiMuro (AL), Billy Williams (NL), Bill Deegan (AL), Bruce Froemming (NL), Dave Phillips (AL)
Hall of Famers Reds: Sparky Anderson (mgr.), Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Pérez. Yankees: Catfish Hunter.
ALCS New York Yankees over Kansas City Royals (3–2)
NLCS Cincinnati Reds over Philadelphia Phillies (3–0)
Similar 1975 World Series, 1977 World Series, 1990 World Series, 1978 World Series, 1974 World Series
Mlb 1976 world series highlights
The 1976 World Series matched the defending champions Cincinnati Reds of the National League against the New York Yankees of the American League, with the Reds sweeping the Series to repeat, avenging their 1939 and 1961 World Series losses to the Yankees in the process. The 1976 Reds became --and remain – the only team to sweep an entire multi-tier postseason. The Reds are also the last National League team to win back-to-back World Series. It also marked the second time that the Yankees were swept in a World Series (the Los Angeles Dodgers were the first to sweep them in 1963).
1976 world series game 4 reds yankees
Composite box
The Cincinnati Reds won the National League West division by 10 games over the Los Angeles Dodgers then defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, three games to none, in the National League Championship Series. The New York Yankees won the American League East division by 10 1⁄2 games over the Baltimore Orioles then defeated the Kansas City Royals, three games to two, in the American League Championship Series.
This World Series was the first in which the designated hitter rule, which had been introduced in the American League three years prior, was in effect. The use of the DH wound up benefiting the Reds, who were able to get utility infielder Dan Driessen's bat in the lineup. Driessen hit .357 with one home run. Elliott Maddox, Carlos May, and Lou Piniella shared the role for the New York Yankees. Game 1, played at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, marked the first time the DH was used in a National League ballpark. Game 2, also at Riverfront Stadium, was the first World Series weekend game to be scheduled at night.
After spending the last two years sharing home field with the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, the New York Yankees returned home to a rebuilt and modified Yankee Stadium. George Steinbrenner had now owned the team for three years, since 1973, with Billy Martin serving the first of his five stints as manager since 1975. General Manager Gabe Paul made numerous trades getting Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa from the Angels for Bobby Bonds; Willie Randolph and Dock Ellis from the Pirates for Doc Medich; and Doyle Alexander, Ken Holtzman, and Grant Jackson from the Orioles for Rudy May, Tippy Martinez, Scott McGregor, and Rick Dempsey.
The heart of the team was Yankee captain, Thurman Munson, whose grit and determination were factors in his winning the 1976 American League MVP award. Third baseman, Graig Nettles, and first baseman, Chris Chambliss were the key run producers, while speedy outfielders Roy White and Rivers set the table for the power hitters. Super free agent Catfish Hunter headed the staff while reliever Sparky Lyle led the A.L. in saves with 23. The Yankees finished 10 1⁄2 ahead in the A.L. East advancing to the World Series by beating the Kansas City Royals in the fifth game of the playoffs on a ninth-inning walk-off home run by Chambliss.
The defending champion Cincinnati Reds were piloted by Sparky Anderson who had a star-studded lineup led by second baseman Joe Morgan. Catcher Johnny Bench, first baseman Tony Pérez, and outfielder George Foster provided enough power to drive in sparkplugs, Pete Rose, Ken Griffey and Morgan, who combined power (27 homers, 111 RBI) and speed (67 stolen bases) from the third-spot in the batting order. Morgan went on to win his second-straight National League Most Valuable Player award, outdistancing runner-up teammate Foster. But Foster would go on to win the 1977 MVP award, giving the Reds six MVPs in an eight-year stretch. Bench won MVP honors in 1970 & '72 while Rose took home the hardware in '73.
The Reds led the NL in every significant offensive category including runs scored, batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, and stolen bases.
On the mound, the Reds relied on left-handers Don Gullett and Fred Norman to pacify the Yankee hitters in Games 1 and 2, respectively. Gullett had come back from a mid-season injury to start Game 1 but had to leave the game in the eighth inning due to a twisted ankle while Norman out-pitched ace Hunter in Game 2. Game 3 in New York pitted effective 1976 NL Rookie of the Year Pat Zachry for the Reds against newly acquired Yankee, Dock Ellis. Ellis only lasted 3 1⁄3 innings, exiting in the fourth after a home run by Driessen. Game 4 was delayed a day due to rain, but the Reds were ready for the sweep. Bench's 2 run home run gave the Reds a 3–1 lead. In the bottom of the eighth, a frustrated Billy Martin threw a baseball from the dugout onto the field towards home plate umpire Bill Deegan, causing his ejection from the game. In the ninth, Bench's second home run followed by back-to-back doubles by César Gerónimo and Dave Concepción made the score 7–2 and essentially blew the game open. The Cincinnati Reds outscored the New York Yankees, 22–8, and became the first NL team to repeat as World Champions since the 1921–1922 New York Giants. The Reds did not make a single offensive or defensive substitution (save pitching changes) during the entire series. Bench would claim the MVP of the series hitting .533 with two home runs and six runs batted in. His catching counterpart, Thurman Munson, had nine hits, all singles, and a .529 batting average.
NL Cincinnati Reds (4) vs. AL New York Yankees (0)
†: postponed from October 20 due to rain
Joe Morgan got the Reds off to a booming start with a solo home run off Doyle Alexander. (Alexander had to start because Catfish Hunter had a sore arm and needed another day of rest). Tony Pérez had RBIs in the third and sixth innings and Johnny Bench had an RBI triple and then scored on a Sparky Lyle wild pitch in the seventh. The only bad news for the Reds was an injury to starting pitcher Don Gullett, who pulled a calf muscle in the eighth and would be unavailable for the remainder of the Series. It turned out to be Gullett's last appearance in a Reds uniform.
The Reds scored three runs in the second off Catfish Hunter on RBI singles by George Foster and Dave Concepción and a sacrifice fly by Ken Griffey. The Yankees got on the board on an RBI single by Graig Nettles in the fourth. In the seventh, the Yankees tied things up on an RBI double by Fred Stanley and an RBI groundout by Thurman Munson. Meanwhile, Hunter settled into a groove, pitching a complete game and shutting out the Reds until the ninth. With two outs, Ken Griffey reached second when Stanley threw wildly past first after fielding his slow bouncer. Joe Morgan was walked intentionally and Tony Pérez ended the game by driving in Griffey with a single.
The Sunday night contest was the first weekend World Series game to start after dark. MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn responded to criticism of the scheduling, which was done to accommodate NBC television, by attending the game without wearing an overcoat in spite of the cold nighttime weather.
As the Series moved to Yankee Stadium, the Reds struck first with three runs off starter Dock Ellis. An RBI double by George Foster, RBI force-out by César Gerónimo, and an RBI single by Dave Concepción provided the tallies. Dan Driessen smacked a solo homer in the fourth, and Joe Morgan had an RBI double and Foster an RBI single in the eighth. Yankee backup shortstop Jim Mason entered the game as a defensive replacement in the fifth inning, and in the seventh inning hit a solo homer, thus becoming the first player to hit a home run in his only World Series at-bat (the second being Geoff Blum). Also, in the seventh, Yankee left-handed reliever Grant Jackson provided a defensive gem by catching a hard-hit ground ball off the bat of Johnny Bench behind his back and retiring Bench, thereby robbing him of a base hit.
This was the first World Series game at Yankee Stadium to open with opera star Robert Merrill's famous rendition of the National Anthem.
The Yankees got on the board in the first (which would be their only lead in this Series) on a Thurman Munson single and a Chris Chambliss double. Munson would collect four hits in the game. In the fourth, Joe Morgan walked, stole second, and came home on a George Foster single. Johnny Bench followed with his first home run to give the Reds a 3–1 lead that they never relinquished. Bench would later add to his heroics with a three-run shot in the ninth, followed by consecutive doubles by César Gerónimo and Dave Concepción. Bench's performance earned him the Series MVP, while fellow catcher Munson had a fine Series himself with nine hits and a .529 average.
1976 World Series (4–0): Cincinnati Reds (N.L.) over New York Yankees (A.L.)
This was the last of 30 consecutive World Series telecasts by NBC, which had aired the event since 1947; under Major League Baseball's new television contract, Series coverage would now alternate between NBC (in even-numbered years) and rival network ABC (in odd-numbered years) each year; this arrangement would end after the 1989 World Series, and CBS would hold exclusive rights to MLB games for the next four years afterwards. (A similar setup occurred between 1996 and 2000, when Series telecasts would alternate between NBC and Fox.) It was also the last time that local announcers for the participating teams (the Reds' Marty Brennaman and the Yankees' Phil Rizzuto, in this case) would be regularly featured on the network telecast.
This was the first of 21 consecutive World Series to be broadcast by CBS Radio.
1976 World Series Wikipedia
Similar Topics1974 World Series


My daughter had four of the six books in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series out from the library at the same time, rushing through one after another. I've been trying to catch up with her, so when I finished Spirit Walker (book 2), I picked up Outcast, thinking it was book 3.
As I read, I had a feeling that something was missing, that Paver was making references to things I didn't remember, but I thought maybe she was just changing up the formula a bit, keeping the reader in suspense and planning to reveal the rest of the story later. I was 90 pages into Outcast when I finally looked at the spine of the book and saw that it was book 4, not book 3. So, I set Outcast aside and got Soul Eater from my daughter.
What's funny is that near the end of Soul Eater, Paver actually uses the technique I'd suspected her of at the beginning of Outcast. We've got this period of lost time in which this thing happens that makes it so Torak has to keep another secret from the Raven clan and sets up the conflict for the next book (although I didn't realize the period of time was lost until Paver mentioned it, and I still can't figure out when exactly this particular scene could have happened).
The books still tell a fairly intriguing story, but I think I'm growing weary of them. Torak just can't seem to catch a break, and that grows tiresome. He's really not learning a lot along the way, either; every book he makes the same mistakes, relying too much on himself and not enough on his friends, keeping secrets when he should be confiding in those he can trust. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Torak are all cut from the same cloth, it seems. I can only hope that this means that Torak will eventually grow from his experiences rather just getting into—and out of—scrapes over and over and over again. I'd really like to see the series turn into a coming-of-age story. He's the right age for it, but so far, I'm not seeing a lot of evidence that's going to happen.
I don't know. I do like the idea in the stories that the potential for evil actions lives in each of us, the whole "chasing demons and soul eaters" thing is just getting a little old. But the books don't take very long to read, and my daughter really likes talking to me about them, so I'll probably finish the series.


text:
Лиза Рыжих (, род. 27 сентября 1988 года, Омск, РСФСР, СССР) — немецкая прыгунья с шестом российского происхождения, двукратный призёр чемпионатов Европы (2010, 2016). Четырёхкратная чемпионка Германии на стадионе (2014, 2015, 2017, 2019). Четырёхкратная чемпионка Германии в помещении (2011, 2015, 2017, 2019).

Биография и карьера
Елизавета Владимировна Рыжих родилась 27 сентября 1988 года в Омске. В 1992 году вместе с семьёй переехала в Германию. У Лизы есть старшая сестра  (род. 1977), которая также является прыгуньей с шестом.

В составе сборной Германии по лёгкой атлетике участвовала в Олимпийских играх 2012 и 2016, чемпионатах мира 2013 и 2015, чемпионатах Европы 2010, 2012, 2014 и 2016.

Достижения

Примечания

Ссылки

 Официальный сайт
 Профиль Лизы на сайте IAAF

Прыгуны с шестом Германии
Легкоатлеты на летних Олимпийских играх 2012 года
Легкоатлеты на летних Олимпийских играх 2016 года
Чемпионы Германии по лёгкой атлетике