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2009 has been an interesting year for cinema. While it didn't boast the ridiculously generous quantity of superior films that 2007 can claim, or 2008's uncommon breadth of form and subject, this year has proven to be a exciting one, provided viewers had the courage to seek out the gems amid an increasingly homogeneous sludge of multiplex inanities and arthouse banalities. No overriding artistic theme has emerged from 2009, but among its most estimable works were those that strove to bend the rules, to various degrees of success. 24 City, Avatar, The Beaches of Agnès, The Girlfriend Experience, Inglourious Basterds, The Limits of Control, and Of Time and the City all upended the conventions of genre, narrative, and visual possibility to marvelous effect. Yet it was also a year for astonishing films executed with established cinematic methods and within familiar generic modes: farce (In the Loop), horror (Drag Me to Hell), gangster (Gomorrah), science-fiction (Moon), and war (The Hurt Locker). The finest dramatic and comedic narrative features were not mainstream critical darlings, but already-forgotten greats like Bright Star, Goodbye Solo, and A Serious Man, or non-English-language triumphs such as 35 Shots of Rum, Summer Hours, and Treeless Mountain. Superior animated films were conspicuous in 2009 as well, as it saw the release of Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Ponyo, Up, and the lamentably undistributed Sita Sings the Blues. Without further ado, let's get to the best of 2009. To be considered, a film must have opened in America between January 1 and December 31, 2009 in wide, limited, or select city release. Film festival premieres don't count, but even, say, a one-week run in New York City does. As with my previous year-in-review features, I've avoiding numerical rankings, which I find difficult to assign and fairly ridiculous anyway. This year I've selected five films that I believe are flat-out masterpieces, nine exceptional contenders, and one undistributed little marvel.
The Beaches of Agnès - Agnès Varda - France
I'm playing the role of a little old lady.
The late films from the living luminaries of the French New Wave have proven to be middling works, or even outright duds. (Yes, Chabrol, Resnais, Rivette: I'm looking at you.) Into such an environment, The Beaches of Agnès wafts like a welcome breeze, a confident, impish, heartfelt cinematic memoir from the movement's lone female director. Agnès Varda's most renowned film, the French arthouse hit Cleo from 5 to 7, was released over four decades ago. However, as her latest, intensely personal feature makes clear, she has always been a relentless creator, working in any medium she fancies: film, video, photography, print, sculpture, and performance art. Varda escorts us on a wry, wistful tour of her life and her art, lingering on memories and revisiting the scenes of various delights and tragedies. She re-enacts and reconfigures key moments of her eighty years in a half-serious search for meaning. Beaches reveals the artist not as a tormented soul, but as a spirit of curiosity, grace, humor, and, above all, warmth. Exhilarating in its honesty and unfettered joy, Varda's masterpiece proves to be one of the most emotionally enthralling and unabashedly intimate self-portraits ever put to film. Impressions from SLIFF here.
Coraline - Henry Selick - USA
Oh my twitchy, witchy girl.
Released in the ancient history of February 2009, Henry Selick's stop-motion horror fable seems to have been all but forgotten beneath a wave of enthusiasm for Pixar's Up. That's a shame, because Coraline isn't merely Selick's finest work to date: it's an essentially perfect film in every way. Boasting breathtaking design that puts the director's own The Nightmare Before Christmas to shame, Coraline wipes away the seams of stop-motion animation and welcomes us—with a Vincent Price grin—into a funhouse reality of stunning tangibility and limitless delights. Selick delivers not only a formal masterpiece that uses 3D technology to ravishing effect, but a sharply constructed, elegantly plotted tale crackling with mythic resonance. It's an epic Hero's Journey reborn as a tidy little monster-in-the-closet yarn. Perhaps most unexpectedly, Coraline presents an uncommonly complex and humane message for parents and children alike, a gentle call for us to curb our egos and cultivate a giving outlook towards those we love. That Selick achieves all of this in one film, a film that most critics seem to have regarded as little more than a kiddie-goth bauble, is nothing short of astounding. Full review here.
Inglourious Basterds - Quentin Tarantino - USA
Facts can be so misleading.
For months the debate has roiled around Quentin Tarantino's World War II thriller-cum-revenge fantasy, and yet the vigorous back-and-forth seems to have only whetted the film's blade and thrown its stunning achievements into sharp relief. Like all of Tarantino's works, Inglourious Basterds functions at the primary level of visceral thrills and quotable wit, and also at a secondary level, where it evinces a profound affection for and absorption with cinema. The writer-director's often overlooked talent for pulse-quickening, people-driven drama is in stunning evidence here, as Basterds boasts some of the finest scenes and characters of QT's career. Effusive and encyclopedic devotee of cinema that he is, however, Tarantino can't resist reshaping his Nazi Film into a cerebral, free-wheeling deconstruction of genre and celebrity. It's from this angle that Basterds' breadth snaps into focus. What emerges is a maddening, enthralling torrent of critique and commentary on art, culture, history, and morality, where each avenue of exploration reveals two others. This is Basterds' triumph: a riveting tale of revenge and betrayal that shares the screen with a deceptively rich and ambitious treatise on... well, everything. It is staggering to consider that the man who created Pulp Fiction was just getting started. Full review here, and further thoughts here.
Of Time and the City - Terence Davies - UK
Come closer now, and see your dreams.
One word describes Terence Davies' cinematic love letter to a vanished Liverpool: exquisite. Of Time and the City is not a film to appreciate or study; it is a film in which to lose yourself, in which to soak like a warm bath drawn by a loving parent. Davies, in what is remarkably his first documentary feature, delves into the recesses of his own memories and into voluminous, often perplexing archival footage of Liverpool in the mid-20th century to craft a poignant poem of images, music, and words. There is no story here, but rather a sensory and emotional experience, a work of personal nostalgia that never once feels indulgent. The genius of Of Time and the City lies in how elegantly Davies uses his own story—wistful, melancholy, sometimes acidic—to explore the meaning of home and transience. The curiously compelling footage, the classical music, and Davies' own lyrical voice-over narration tug irresistibly on the mind and heart. The director's sense of loss and yearning are not backgrounded in favor of abstract meanderings, and yet still something painfully universal emerges, compelling us to reflect on our own loss and yearning. A majestic film that moved me to tears. Full review here.
A Serious Man - Ethan and Joel Coen - USA
Mere surmise, sir. Very uncertain.
In what proves to be their most scathing and plaintive feature in a prolific decade, the Coen brothers offer a work of cinematic theodicy, as absurdly funny and thematically intricate as one would expect from the virtuosos of American film. Accusations of misanthropy and mean-spirited glee are misplaced when discussing the Coens, and never more-so than vis-à-visA Simple Man, a work of profound sadness and awed confusion in which its hapless protagonist, Larry Gopnik, watches in terror as his life disintegrates before his eyes. The Coens effortlessly balance sympathy for Larry's plight with buzzing doubts about the nature of culpability and causality. Who else but the brothers could turn the story of a nebbishy physics professor and his misfortunes into something so beautiful, so entertaining, and so philosophically audacious? Just as No Country For Old Men was the Coens' blistering howl of post-faith despair, A Simple Man is a masterpiece of religious woe, a horror film with the rhythms and sensibilities of a timeworn Jewish joke. Yet for all its theological probings and bitter amusements, the potency of A Simple Man is summed up in its devastating cut to black and implicit caution: "It can always get worse." Full review here.
24 City - Zhang Ke Jia - China
Zhang Ke Jia builds upon his reputation as the most exciting and perceptive film-maker in China with his latest stunner, a chimera of fact and fiction, chilly observation and soulful humanity. Like all of Jia's films, 24 City is a work characterized by a heightened awareness, here for the sights and sounds of an industrial complex's slow evolution into modern high-rises. Steeped in equal doses of hope and anxiety, 24 City demonstrates Jia's enviable fusion of empathy and visual artistry, not to mention his eerie facility for capturing the aura of a time and place. Impressions from SLIFF here.
35 Shots of Rum - Claire Denis - France
Claire Denis' magnificent exhale of humane drama boasts a stable of remarkable performances, but what sets 35 Shots of Rum apart from its contemporaries is the authorial strength and emotional insight that sizzle beneath Denis' understated style. In telling this languid story of lonely souls in a block of Parisian flats, Denis discovers psychological authenticity through a graceful, bewitching approach that favors tender social observation over strident declaration. Every frame of 35 Shots of Rum sings with the energy of a confident film-maker whose understanding of the human heart is daunting in its precision. Impressions from SLIFF here.
Bright Star - Jane Campion - UK / Australia / France
For her blissfully tragic tale of the chaste love between Fanny Brawne and John Keats, Jane Campion relies upon both familiar romantic tropes and an effortless emotional intimacy with her audience. Bright Star presents Campion working in her most admirable and purely cinematic mode, where even story itself is secondary to the collision of sensation and mood. Bright Star utilizes the texture of its nineteenth-century pastoral setting to marvelous effect, not for the sake of authenticity, but always to heighten and underline the pathos that coils around its doomed lovers. A veritable vision of romance itself. Full review here.
In the Loop - Armando Iannucci - UK
Armando Iannucci's razor-sharp, achingly funny, breathtakingly profane farce is the best film yet made about the Iraq War—and more generally about the unremitting cascade of bullshit that characterizes politics and media in the twenty-first century. Films about horrible people doing horrible things don't come more maniacally entertaining or uncannily frank than In the Loop, which might be classified as a tragedy if it weren't so damn funny. Iannucci's comedic triumph boasts not only the screenplay of the year, but also Peter Capaldi's magnificently contemptible performance as Malcolm Tucker, a contender for cinema's asshole of the decade. Full review here.
Moon - Duncan Jones - UK
With unwavering focus and fierce intelligence, Duncan Jones crafts an old-school, thinking-man's science-fiction powerhouse, built on the foundations of a single enthralling performance and masterful use of practical special effects. Moon is what sci-fi can be at its finest: densely layered drama about the perilous intersection of technology and humanity, drama that seizes us and refuses to let go. Sam Rockwell positively carries the film with his frazzled portrayal of a spacebound worker bee who yearns for the truth. Moon is an unexpected triumph and an affirmation of the enduring power of futuristic settings for probing artistic discourse. Full review here.
Ponyo - Hayao Miyazaki - Japan
Animation titan Hayao Miyazaki demonstrates that his talent for blending surreal fantasy and authentic emotion has not wavered with Ponyo, an oceanic fairy tale that dazzles both the senses and the soul. Miyazaki pulls back the curtain on weird, wonderful marine vistas inspired by equal measures of scientific awe and folklore-tinged fancy. Yet as with all of Miyazaki's triumphs, Ponyo's most profound appeal lies in its humanity and its warm regard for life's smallest details. By means of an elemental tale of love and separation, Miyazaki plumbs the magical, often sorrowful character of life's transitions. Full review here.
Summer Hours - Olivier Assayas - France
With the marvelously observed, endlessly touching Summer Hours, Olivier Assayas reminds us that family drama need not be histrionic and ugly to be captivating. The list of highlights in this bittersweet tale of inheritance is long, from a parade of utterly genuine performances to Eric Gautier's dreamy, roving camerawork. Most conspicuous, however, is the rigorous command of Assayas himself, whose hand provides the film with a powerful thematic coherence and luscious visual language. Summer Hours discovers the drama inherent in endings, rendering the dispersal of a family's heirlooms as one of the most compelling stories of the year. Full review here.
Treeless Mountain - So Yong Kim - USA / South Korea
So Yong Kim solidifies her position as one of the most gently perceptive and soulful social realists working today with her tearful, empathetic sophomore effort, Treeless Mountain. Within the story of two young girls shuffled from relative to relative by financial pressures, Kim exhibits a profound understanding of the slow, proud way that awareness and emotional maturity germinate in a child's consciousness. Kim's lean, understated approach to storytelling reveals a uncommon talent for conveying meaning through the smallest details of performance, and belies the director's masterful use of setting and motif to underline her film's rich psychological texture. Full review here.
Up - Pete Docter - USA
Under the guise of spinning a rousing adventure tale that treats childhood whimsy with absolute conviction, Pete Docter wallops us with a sorrowful gut-punch about deferred dreams and the craving for human connection. The most emotionally complex film yet from Pixar, Up woos us with a (yes, visually dazzling) story of escape that resonates with the fussy crayon blueprints of our younger days. Even as it starkly portrays the ease with which life's caprices stymie the grandest plans, the film posits that love itself is the noblest adventure, a trite sentiment rendered magnificently uplifting by Docter's assured hand. Full review here.
The Do-It-Yourself Best
Sita Sings the Blues - Nina Paley - USA
Nina Paley's labor of anguish and liberation never found a distributor due to copyright concerns, and jumped directly from one-off screenings to a DVD release. Its theatrical absence notwithstanding, Sita Sings the Blues deserves a place of honor as one of the most inventive, giddily entertaining works of musical animation since Yellow Submarine. Endlessly imaginative, expressive, and witty, Sita gleams with a consuming authorial resolve and passion. Gently feminist and distressingly personal, it nonetheless retains an atmosphere of funky good times, burnished by a plethora of wondrous styles and a sprightly affection for Indian culture and early jazz. Full review here.
Honorable Mentions: Anvil!: The Story of Anvil, Avatar, Drag Me to Hell, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Girlfriend Experience, Gomorrah, Goodbye Solo, The Hurt Locker, The Limits of Control
Underrated: Antichrist, Tetro, Watchmen
Overrated, Slightly or Highly: Adventureland, Amreeka, The Baader-Meinhof Complex, District 9, An Education, The Hangover, Lorna's Silence, Paranormal Activity, Precious, Star Trek, Two Lovers, Where the Wild Things Are
Biggest Disappointment: Adoration
CategoriesYear in Review
Moments Out of Time: 2008
Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy at MSN Movies are back with their annual "Moments Out of Time" feature: the "images, lines, gestures, moods" from the films of 2008 that have stuck with them. It's become something of an unofficial tradition for cinema bloggers and commentators to offer up their own moments, so here are mine. Feel free to add, amend, and bicker in comments. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) sits at a cramped, noisy dinner table, but her mind is trapped in a dingy hotel room miles away.
The Band's Visit: In a sad little roller disco, Haled (Saleh Bakri) tutors Papi (Shlomi Avraham) in the rules of romance with a hands-on demonstration.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*: California Representative Henry Waxman awkwardly admits that he doesn't know the legal drinking age in the United States.
Blind Mountain: Bai (Lu Huang) regards a meat cleaver with smoldering eyes, contemplating its possible role in securing her long-thwarted escape.
Burn After Reading: Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) spits the insult of the year: "Fuck you, Peck, you're a Mormon. Compared to you we all have a drinking problem."
Chris & Don: A Love Story: Sly, spry 74-year-old Don Bachardy weeps as he recalls sketching his lover Christopher Isherwood in the man's final days.
The Class: For a few heady minutes, the unruly grammar students under the charge of Mr. Marin (François Bégaudeau) gaze admiringly at the photos taken by their classmate Souleymane.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: At the end of their inverted biological trajectories, an elderly Daisy (Cate Blanchett) caresses the dying infant that was once her lover.
The Dark Knight: The Joker (Heath Ledger), cackling in a police interrogation room, revels in Batman's (Christian Bale) realization that his impotence is absolute: "You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with!"
Days and Clouds: Michele (Antonio Albanese) runs in a panic from a bungled wallpapering job, shamed at his imcompetence, his cowardice, and the abject failure of his life.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father: David Bagby confesses his elaborate homicidal fantasies regarding the psychopathic woman who murdered his son.
The Edge of Heaven: As men descend a staircase on their way to mosque, Nejat (Baki Davrak) explains to Susanne (Hanna Schygulla) that he has forgotten the depths of his estranged father's love.
Encounters at the End of the World: A solitary penguin, miles from its nesting ground or the sea, waddles off towards the mountains and certain death.
The Fall: An emotional crescendo as Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) and Roy (Lee Pace) whisper in the language of storytelling: Please don't kill yourself. Why not? Because I love you.
The Flight of the Red Balloon: Suzanne (Juliette Binoche), her life coming apart at the seams, embraces Simon (Simon Iteanu) with boundless love, while Song Fan and a blind piano tuner attend to their work.
Happy-Go-Lucky: On Poppy's (Sally Hawkins) final driving lesson, Scott (Eddie Marsan) loses it, and a torrent of repressed rage, resentment, and desire pours forth.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and Liz (Selma Blair) wander dumbfounded through a Garden of Eden that has sprung from a slain behemoth's remains.
I Served the King of England: Jan (Oldrich Kaiser) serves milk to a gaggle of nude Teutonic beauties at a Nazi "breeding center".
Iron Man: With his final line, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), thrusts his superhero alter ego into the sunlight: "I am Iron Man."
The Last Mistress: Wailing over the death of their daughter, Vellini (Asia Argento) couples frantically with Ryno (Fu'ad Ait Aattou) in the Algerian desert.
Let the Right One In: Naked under the covers, Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) and Eli (Lina Leandersson) gently hold hands.
Man on Wire: Annie Allix chokes up, searching for words as she recalls the sublime beauty of Philippe Petit's performance.
Paranoid Park: Alex (Gabe Nevins) ambles in slump-shouldered slow-motion through the corridors of his high school, cloaked in gray shadow.
Rachel Getting Married: Kym (Anne Hathaway) rambles her way through a self-absorbed, incoherent toast that just keeps getting worse.
Revolutionary Road: April (Kate Winslet), eerily calm, declares, "Fuck who you like, Frank."
Shotgun Stories: Son (Michael Shannon) spits contemptuously on the grave of his father, setting in motion a tragedy that will swallow two families.
Speed Racer: Clinching victory in a race for the ages, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) slides the Mach 5 to a halt as its tires melt into puddles of black goo.
Standard Operating Procedure: Flabbergasted, Errol Morris intrudes into his film with a query for Sabrina Harman: "Did any of this seem unusual to you?"
Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains: Overcome with the enormity of their friends' sacrifice, the survivors of the Andean disaster marvel at the miracle of their own children and grandchildren.
Synecdoche, New York: Olive (Robin Weigert) denies her father Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) a deathbed absolution, and an indigo flower petal falls onto a white sheet.
Tropic Thunder: Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) realizes with horror exactly what sort of animal he has killed.
Trouble the Water: Kimberly Rivers Roberts, discovering a picture of her mother in her hurricane-ravaged home, hugs it to her chest with a look of pure joy.
Up the Yangtze: After weeks of work on a tourist pleasure boat, "Cindy" Shui Yu can barely conceal her embarrassment as she meets her peasant parents at the docks.
WALL•E: Laboring in the epilogue of human civilization, our robotic hero stacks cubes of refuse into a pollution-stained sky.
Waltz With Bashir: As corpses are carried out, an Israeli soldier mops pools of gore from the inside of his tank.
Wendy and Lucy: Wendy (Michelle Williams), too terrified to move or breathe, listens to the midnight ravings of a derelict.
Wonderful Town: Na (Supphasit Kansen) lays down tentatively on Ton's empty hotel bed and savors the sensation of a budding love.
The Wrestler: Settling into his new position behind the deli counter, Randy (Mickey Rourke) charms and wisecracks his way through the day's customers.
Last year I waited until mid-January to post my Year-in-Review feature. Inevitably, there were a few 2007 films that I caught later that month—particularly There Will Be Blood and Michael Clayton—that probably should have been ranked among the best of the year. Nevertheless, this year you're getting my assessment of 2008's films on the final day of December. The risks of shutting out features that won't arrive in St. Louis theaters until next year have to be weighed against the faded relevance of a 2008 Year-in-Review feature published in January of February. In the end, the decision was somewhat arbitrary, just as the marking of a "Year in Film" from January 1 to December 31 is fairly arbitrary. Ultimately, I relied on my sense that I have a fairly full quiver to draw from this year. Simply put, I saw a lot more films in their theatrical release in 2008 than I did in 2007, which has significantly enhanced my ability to assemble a respectable Year-in-Review feature.
So let's get to it. I still have mixed feelings about last year's self-imposed constraint of just five films, so this year I'm veering in the other direction. I've assembled a list of the best films of 2008 without any regard for a final number. I ended up with thirteen luminaries and thirteen honorable mentions. The top thirteen were those works that truly jumped out at me when I combed back over this year's films. These features didn't just stand out from the pack as cinematic achievements; they also possessed some elusive element that touched me personally. The films are listed alphabetically, because A) this method seemed to work well last year, B) I hate agonizing over rankings, and C) rankings are fairly ridiculous anyway.
To be considered, a film must have opened in America between January 1 and December 31, 2008 in wide, limited, or select city release. Film festival premieres don't count, but even a one-week run in New York City does. Got it? My wife also offers up a capsule second opinion, including some contrarian tweaking of the Coens and Claude Chabrol. Let the nitpicking begin!
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - Christian Mungui - Romania
Christian Mungui's harrowing drama is steeped in the gnawing agony of oppression and desperation. Hurtling out of the gray purgatory of 1987 Romania, 4 Months employs a realist approach to the story of an illicit abortion, all while engaging a fearsome snarl of themes. Much more than a thriller, and yet fueled by a groaning tension that Mungiu winds to nearly unbearable tautness, 4 Months collapses the viewer's awareness until it matches that of protagonists Otilia and Gabita. Possessing both a stony gaze and a searing feminine empathy, this is cinematic drama at its most potent. Full review here.
The Class - Laurent Cantet - France
The tousled, buzzing energy of Laurent Cantet's wondrous work of social realism seizes the viewer's attention and refuses to let go. Cantet captures the sparks and exasperation of secondary education with a novel, breathtaking sensitivity to classroom dynamics. Pitting nimble pedagogue Mr. Marin against a roomful of defiant grammar students, The Class alights upon an array of cultural and political nodes with striking, naturalistic performances, while maintaining a lean structural discipline. Eschewing condescension or exploitation, Cantet sketches a portrait of contemporary education perpetually teetering on the brink of small miracles and catastrophes. Impressions from SLIFF here.
The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan - USA
Unnerving, despairing, and unabashedly grandiose, The Dark Knight is action film-making at its most uncompromising and gleefully diabolical. Christopher Nolan resolves to burn Batman Begins' soaring themes—and the entire concept of the "comic film"—to cinders, while still hewing to the genre's meat-and-potatoes conventions. The Dark Knight is assembled out of civic anxieties long forgotten, contemporary hobgoblins suckled on fears of shattering violence, and a bottomless tank of sheer velocity. Stunningly edited and scored, and held together with Heath Ledger's mesmerizing, utterly terrifying presence, the film cleaves comforting political constructs on all sides without pause or pity. Full review here.
The Edge of Heaven - Fatih Akin - Germany / Turkey
Fatih Akin's pained, touching ode to compassion and forgiveness is a work of beauty, brilliantly executed and emotionally sensuous. Zigzagging across borders, cultures, and generations, The Edge of Heaven weaves a tale of six wounded souls in search of contentment and meaning. Suffused with boundless pathos and an elegant sensitivity to the delicacy of relationships, the film ponders the nature of opportunity, calamity, and connection. Accompanied by a score both rousing and mournful, Akin discovers one affecting gesture after another, offering one of the most powerful films about fallibility and grace in recent memory. Full review here.
Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog - USA
Trading the acerbic bite of Grizzly Man for an infectious sense of flabbergasted wonder, Werner Herzog triumphs again with this meandering yet penetrating rumination on the people, creatures, and places of Antarctica. Encounters at the End of the World transcends the sideshow impulses that bedevil nature documentaries, delving with jaunty elegance into the sublime mystery of exploration. Combining visual marvels with Herzog's dry witticisms, Encounters is a rare treat for the eyes and the mind. The venerable director captures moments charged with both awe and sentiment, painting the polar wilderness as a modern oracle who jealously guards her secrets. Full review here.
The Fall - Tarsem Singh - India / UK / USA
Tarsem Singh goes all in with this cinematic gamble, a maddening, bewildering work that gleams with an otherworldly grandness. The Fall nests a dazzling, surreal fantasy within an affecting drama about the power of storytelling, creating one of the most perplexing and indescribable films of the year. Yet for all its storybook camp and breathtaking vistas—every one a real-world locale—The Fall's heart rests in the hands of Lee Pace and the stunning Catinca Untaru. Together they convey a moving and utterly credible bond between a man and child, one that passes through affection and deceit to discover salvation. Full review here.
Paranoid Park - Gus Van Sant - USA
Slippery and addictive, Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park burrows into a rattled headspace of adolescent guilt and philosophical fumbling with astonishing empathy. Daring in its visual and aural methods and evincing a profound psychological sensitivity, this film is exquisitely balanced between art and observation. First-time actor Gabe Nevins' inky gazes and awkward musings serve as a humane anchor amid a jumbled, fluid tale of fear, secrecy, and emerging moral awareness. Van Sant shuffles and backtracks through time, then stops to linger on acute, charged moments of motion and light. This is challenging, meditative film-making at its finest. Full review here.
Standard Operating Procedure - Errol Morris - USA
Errol Morris tackles the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuser scandal, riveting the viewer's attention with his meticulous, ominous stylings even as he upends expectations. Blending talking head interviews with hypnotic effects and glinting, gothic recreations, Morris broadens the controversy beyond quarrels about American power to encompass grittier, timeless matters of responsibility, culpability, and perception. Standard Operating Procedure delves into our memories of Abu Ghraib's searing images, striking a sobering balance between horror and doubt, shock and exasperation. Morris resists finger-wagging, permitting the men and women involved to speak for themselves even as he sculpts a furious aura of menace and moral free-fall. Full review here.
Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains - Gonzalo Arijon - France
Stranded is a marvel of a documentary, a one-two punch of superb historical storytelling and soaring ecstatic wonder. Gonzalo Arijon lends the tale of the Andean flight disaster the detailed, moving treatment it deserves, layering it with graceful recreations and priceless first-hand accounts from the survivors. However, Stranded's achievement rests on more than the uniqueness of the Andean story. Arijon uncovers the profound, almost rapturous themes of life and death within his narrative of astounding endurance. Stranded summons an otherworldly aura around the survivors, exhibiting a generous appreciation for the confluence of unthinkable trials and universal love. Impressions from SLIFF here.
Synecdoche, New York - Charlie Kaufman - USA
Charlie Kaufman takes us deep into the bowels of his (and our) mortal fears and existential longings, chuckling dryly all the way down. Spellbinding, devastating, and deliciously, hideously funny, Synecdoche, New York is a brazen roundhouse to reason and the senses. Kaufman conjures an uncanny dream world around miserable theater director Caden Cotard, stretching locales, identities, and time like so much Silly Putty. Synecdoche duels with itself, parrying despair with charm, revelation with silliness. This is a mindfuck with a heart, a haunting, baffling plunge into the secret terrors and vanities that crouch on humanity's collective chest. Full review here.
Trouble the Water - Carl Deal and Tia Lessin - USA
Carl Deal and Tia Lessin's outstanding documentary on Hurricane Katrina is both stark and uplifting, a work of astonishing density and spirit. Trouble the Water follows Kimberley Roberts, a hustler and aspiring hip-hop artist with a thousand yards of charisma, as she weathers the storm and its aftermath. Deal and Lessin step aside, permitting Roberts' hand-held footage and commentary to claim the spotlight, while still maintaining an elegant control over the pacing and structure of this remarkable woman's story. Together they create a stirring and poignant ground view of American values, aspirations, and endurance. Full review here.
WALL•E - Andrew Stanton - USA
Andrew Stanton's WALL•E is a versatile treasure, as gorgeous and insightful at it is pitch-perfect hilarious. The film's post-apocalyptic landscapes and sterile corporate environs pop with curious majesty. The titular automaton's charms—a small miracle of character design, this WALL•E—lend his struggles allegorical heft and startling resonance. Stanton creates something more ambitious and memorable than an endearing fable, layering on science fiction motifs and themes to create a remarkably rich and prickly story that tackles consumer culture, sustainability, and utopianism. Easily Pixar's boldest and most complex film to date, WALL•E soars above the expectations and constraints of both medium and genre. Full review here.
Wendy and Lucy - Kelly Reichardt - USA
Exhibiting an enviable sensitivity for agonies of the everyday sort, Kelly Reichardt spins an unassuming, painfully intimate story of two days in the bleak, wobbling lives of a drifter and her mutt. Wendy and Lucy mates pointed, politically-conscious realism with universal sentiments about loyalty and sacrifice, resulting in a powerful, uncompromising work that rubs the heart raw. Michelle Williams astounds as Wendy, and together she and Reichardt boldly craft an impoverished heroine who evokes sympathy without benefit of saintly virtue. In Wendy, this moving film finds an avatar to scrutinize the small tragedies that sprout like dandelions in hard times. Impressions from SLIFF here.
The Next Best of 2008
The Band's Visit - Eran Kolirin - Israel
Within an appealing fish-out-of-water fable, Eran Kolirin and his magnificent cast discover sparkling comedic moments and a rich tapestry of contradictions and conflicts. Full review here.
Blind Mountain - Yang Li - China
Yang Li's unforgiving, cthonic ordeal pulverizes modern illusions of safety, dignity, and liberty. Mesmerizing and disturbing, Blind Mountain plays out (and ends) like a nightmare. Impressions from SLIFF here.
Chris & Don: A Love Story - Tina Mascara and Guido Santi - USA
Tackling a personal tale with sensitivity and canniness, Tina Mascara and Guido Santi's study of an unlikely love bursts with affection and sublime humanity. Full review here.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father - Kurt Kuenne - USA
Kurt Kuenne pours his heart into a documentary that is part memorial and part righteous howl of anguish. A naked slice of profoundly personalized—and riveting—film-making. Impressions from SLIFF here.
The Flight of the Red Balloon - Hsiao-hsien Hou - France
Featuring Juliette Binoche in a stunning performance, Hsiao-Hsien Hou's unconventional wonderwork of a family drama is as emotionally rewarding as it is artistically ambitious. Full review here.
Happy-Go-Lucky - Mike Leigh - UK
The seductive confluence of a stellar performance from Sally Hawkins and perceptive direction from Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky is dramatic comedy as nimble social lesson. Full review here.
Let the Right One In - Tomas Alfredson - Sweden
Tomas Alfredson delivers the best vampire film in over a decade, a moody melange of camp horror, pre-teen angst, and provocative sexual subtext. Full review here.
Man on Wire - James Marsh - UK
James Marsh's compelling documentary of death-defiance plays like a witty caper at first, then discovers a tingling transcendence, ripe with reverent awe. Full review here.
Rachel Getting Married - Johanthan Demme - USA
Capped with a marvelous turn from Anne Hathaway, Jonathan Demme's paradoxical slice-of-life drama is a crackling study of family dynamics, utterly joyous and rotten. Full review here.
Shotgun Stories - Jeff Nichols - USA
Brimming with authentic, small-town lethargy and biblical ferocity, Shotgun Stories is a searing parable of revenge, amusingly pathetic and fearlessly poignant in equal measure.
Waltz With Bashir - Ari Folman - Israel
Haunting and visually compelling, Ari Folman's animated documentary expounds with obsessive, sweaty enthusiasm on memory, guilt, and the uncanniness of war. Full review here.
Wonderful Town - Aditya Assarat - Thailand
Aditya Assarat's placid, achingly observed story of ordinary love revels in both the sheer process of romance and the cold cruelty of an indifferent world. Impressions from SLIFF here.
The Wrestler - Darren Aronofsky - USA
With Mickey Rourke commanding the viewer's gaze in a miracle performance, Darren Aronofsky discovers familiar themes and delicate sensitivity within an archetypal sports film. Full review here.
Best Film the U.S. Is Still Waiting For
The Minder - Rodrigo Moreno - Argentina
Rodrigo Moreno's minimalist socio-political fable is constructed from a cascade of canny observations. The Minder is meticulous film-making that demands patience, but it's also a hypnotic and grueling glimpse of repressed resentments. In the U.S. it appeared only on the film festival circuit. Catch it when it surfaces on DVD. Impressions from tLIFF here.
Most Underrated Surprise
Speed Racer - Andy and Larry Wachowski - USA
What is Speed Racer? A madcap decathlon of color and motion. An earnest fairy tale about the power of awe and family. An intricate, kid-friendly rumination on athletics and fair play. A film more humane and snappy than the Matrix trilogy. A glorious mess of contradictions. Full review here.
Overrated, Slightly or Highly
The Counterfeiters, Doubt, The Duchess of Langeais, Frost/Nixon, Horton Hears a Who!, A Girl Cut in Two, Milk, Mongol, Roman de Gare, Slumdog Millionaire, Tell No One, Transsiberian, Vicky Christina Barcelona
The Best Films of 2008 - Second Opinion
The Best of 2008: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Dark Knight, Doubt, The Fall, Iron Man, Man on Wire, Slumdog Millionaire, Trouble the Water, Waltz With Bashir, The Wrestler
The Next Best of 2008: Dear Zachary, The Edge of Heaven, Paranoid Park, Quantum of Solace, Speed Racer, Tropic Thunder, WALL•E
The Worst of 2008:
Alvin and the Chipmunks: "Woof. More here."
Burn After Reading: "A rare Coen fail. If their intention was to make me sick to my stomach and squirm uncomfortably in my seat, they achieved what they set out to do. It just didn't speak to me in any memorable way, certainly a far cry from the masterful grace of most of their other films. Brad Pitt was hilarious, but there wasn't enough of him to make it worthwhile."
A Girl Cut in Two: "A story about stupid and miserable people doing stupid and miserable things with their stupid and miserable friends. They are good-looking, well-read, rich, and sophisticated, so we're supposed to enjoy their pain or something. Craptacular. If people like this really exist, we must find them, end them, and get it over with."
Here we go. 2007 is officially over, and while we of course didn't get to see all the films we wanted from this year, the Cinephiles have cobbled together their Best of 2007 lists. To qualify for these lists, a film must have been released in American theaters between January 1 and December 31, 2007. Only wide, limited, or select city releases qualify. Films released on the film festival circuit or in other nations only in 2007 do not qualify. Participating Cinephiles submitted five unranked films selected as their favorites from 2007. Within each individual's list, the films are presented in alphabetical order.
Andrew's Top Five of 2007
Andrew Dominnik's profound, majestic revisionist Western is one of those films that unexpectedly came together in all the right ways for me. The success of The Assassination lies in its innovative approach to the genre, daringly embraced and deftly executed. Dominnik reinvents the Western as a despairing, post-modern ballad, its breathtaking beauty lacerated with artifice and fatalistic, removed scrutiny. The result is a stimulating, marvelously effective work. Who would have thought that 160 lingering minutes of Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck swapping ominous dialogue would be the Western of the year? Full review here.
Death Proof
While Rodriguez gave us gleefully puerile thrills, Quentin Tarantino crafted his most mature film to date. More so that Jackie Brown or Kill Bill, Death Proof is a gloriously harrowing feminist fable. Sexual politics seen through a male funhouse prism, Death Proof is as socially conscious as any work from a mainstream director this year. Tarantino pulls off a spellbinding feat, blending wrenching suspense, hypnotic dialogue, and obsessive references, and then adding layers upon layers of provocative subtext. Death Proof is further confirmation that Tarantino is no slick, insincere appropriator, but a cunning commentator, a performance artist whose medium is all of film history.
The debate over No Country rages, but I stand firmly in the camp that it is a new American classic. Joel and Ethan Coen have delivered a bold, mutinous contemporary Western that showcases their mastery of the medium. No Country wears the garb of a sharp, terrifying thriller, but this conceals something more ambitious. The moral terror of McCarthy's novel—which I have since devoured—comes bubbling through like a force of nature. Surrounded by superb actors, Tommy Lee Jones is the harrowed center of No Country, delivering one of the most affecting performances of his career. Full review here.
Brad Bird spins a high concept for the Food Network enthusiast—"He's a rat, but he loves to cook!"—into endearing comedic gold. Ratatouille, Bird's third and best feature, testifies to his remarkable hybrid talent, fusing dazzling visual design, madcap spectacle, and astute storytelling. Cunningly inverting the Disney formula (here an animal protagonist and human comic ensemble, Ratatouille's sheer artistry hearkens back to the company's earliest animation shorts and features, a superb accomplishment in itself. And yet it also hits the humane comedy sweet spot by uncovering the touching and the truthful in outrageous situations.
With Zodiac, David Fincher not only creates a stark, remorseless thriller—possibly the best of the past decade—but reveals a mature command in his direction. Zodiac is both an arduous, time-lapse portrait of obsession, and an unequivocal rejoinder to every trite, tidily resolved police procedural. It's deliciously unconventional where it has every right not to be, and bristles with moments of dizzying terror. Mark Ruffalo as the shrewd, compelling Detective Toschi stands out amid several engrossing performances. Sweeping in scope but invested with clear-eyed focus, Zodiac delivers an unflinching rumination on mystery and violence in modern America.
Honorable Mentions: 12:08 East of Bucharest, Blame It on Fidel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, God Grew Tired of Us, Into Great Silence, Juno, Once, Persepolis
Andrew's Best Actors and Director of 2007
Best Performance by an Actor Tommy Lee Jones - No Country For Old Men
There were several top-tier lead performances by male actors this year, but none of them has haunted me like Tommy Lee Jones in No Country For Old Men. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is such a comfortable role for Jones that it's tempting to dismiss his performance as natural typecasting and select a more revelatory turn (Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James) or a seductive low-key portrayal (Mark Ruffalo in Zodiac). Fundamentally, however, I come back to how Jones utilizes every speck of his formidable acting talent in each of Ed Tom's gestures and words, and how the result is at once completely believable and profoundly moving. I actually tear up just remembering the way that Jones delivers his closing monologue. It's a devastating performance from an American marvel.
Best Performance by an Actor (Runner-Up) Mircea Andreescu - 12:08 East of Bucharest
12:08 East to Bucharest was an unexpected delight, a stunningly shot and wonderfully acted Romanian satire. Although the more textured political commentary likely sailed over my American head, nearly all the laugh-out-loud moments in this film can be laid at the feet of Mircea Andreescu, who gives a luminous comedic performance as the dour yet childlike Emanoil Piscoci. Andreescu channels influences as diverse as Charles Chaplin and Paul Reubens, and absolutely steals the show. It's to his credit, then, that his presence is never distracting, but rather highlights the film's wry observations on revolution, memory, and self-aggrandizement.
Best Performance by an Actress Ashley Judd - Bug
Lately I've been thinking fondly of veteran Bollywood actor Tabu's turn as Ashima Ganguli in The Namesake, if only because it is a pinnacle performance in a strangely underrated film. Given those criteria, however, then I absolutely have to go with Ashley Judd as Agnes White in Bug. I've never had much of an opinion on Judd's acting chops, but her performance in William Friedkin's paranoid-schizophrenia freefall is just incredible. It's like watching a star coalesce from cosmic dust, swell into a burning orb, and collapse into a black hole, all in the space of two hours. It's a career-high role, and I can't honestly name a performance by a female actor this year that was more memorable.
Best Performance by an Actress (Runner-Up) Kelly Macdonald - No Country For Old Men
Judd aside, if there was one female actor who stood head and shoulders above the rest this year, it was Kelly Macdonald as Carla Jean Moss in No Country For Old Men. Surrounded by mythic performances from male actors, Macdonald carves out her own deep fissure in the bleak landscape of No Country, never less that utterly convincing as Carla Jean. Watching Macdonald, it's not just difficult to envision another actor in the role; it's damn near incomprehensible. Who knew that a Scottish actress could so perfectly embody the weariness and quivering resolve within a slip of Texan trailer trash?
Best Director David Fincher - Zodiac
It's tempting to pick Joel and Ethan Coen, given that No Country For Old Men is such an achievement, or Brad Bird, given that he needs more recognition for his brilliant storytelling. Yet even ten months after the release of Zodiac, 2007 was the year of David Fincher. Fincher has made some mediocre films and some great films, but Zodiac is his first brilliant film. Its success lies not just in Fincher's espresso-rich composition and legendary perfectionism, but in the plain fact that he takes what could have been a serviceable police procedural and elevates it into one of the finest American auteur films this year. Need proof that Fincher has emerged from the formidable, primal-scream shadows of Se7en and Fight Club? Witness how he conjures unbearable tension from nowhere during an interview in a breakroom, or how he makes the irrational fear of a dark basement so immediate and overpowering.
Libby's Top Five of 2007
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
This is a beautiful, touching film. Jean-Dominique Bauby's story should be dreadfully depressing, Diving Bell presents it not as a handicapped man's story, but simply as a man's story. The movie is slow, but not boring. It was like a long hike in the woods. It may take some time, but every moment seems worthwhile. Julian Schnabel's direction is reliant on imagery, but for a story about a man depending upon imagination to survive, it seems right. Mathieu Amalric's performance made the movie for me. It is lovely and quiet, even when he is playing the playboy, pre-stroke Bauby.
Deathproof is the superior film in my opinion. Critics were misguided when they regarded the dialogue as excessive. Tarantino is a dialogue master, and here he does not disappoint. The movie has an almost dangerous message about the power dynamics between women and men. Is it a healthy message? Not sure. Rodriguez's Planet Terror is pure cliché in the best sense. The bad guys and good guys are clearly drawn and do what you expect them to do, and yet the film still seems fresh and exciting. Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling is a fun heroine: deadpan, snarly, and courageous.
This movie is an inspiration. Marjane Satrapi's story is a fascinating one, not only due to the political struggles in Iran, but because she so beautifully intercuts those politics with her personal struggles. In Satrapi's story, the struggles of the Iranian people seem just as significant as her struggles to discover love, independence, and her place in the Western world.
I kept thinking about this cute little cartoon about rats that cook. Ratatouille was just... lovely. Brad Bird's flair for animation is something I've loved since his early days with The Simpsons, so I knew it would be beautiful to watch. Here it is masterful. The artistry is astounding! The voice acting was superb, with Brad Garrett as Gusteau being my favorite performance. The humor was authentic without being juvenile, and the music was beautiful. This movie was just joyous to watch.
Watching Johnny Depp sing a ballad about regret while slicing throats open to a deluge of candy-red blood was a singularly satisfying sight, and a great way to begin my Christmas holiday. It's not just the Burton-Depp combo that makes this movie great, but it's all the gory details. The muted palate brightened by blood, the searing look in Depp's eyes throughout, Sascha Baron-Cohen's snake Pirelli, and Helena Bonham-Carter's chirpy-yet-dangerous Mrs. Lovett. There were moments that were hilarious, but so vile you wonder if you should laugh. I laughed, and frequently. Burton wins again.
Honorable Mentions: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Hot Fuzz, Knocked Up, No Country For Old Men, Waitress
Stephanie's Top Five of 2007
300GrindhouseHarry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixPirates of the Caribbean: At World's EndSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Teresa's Top Five of 2007
Black Snake MoanEastern PromisesI Am LegendPirates of the Caribbean: At World's EndSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
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COLUMBIA, 1/19/12 (Beat Byte) -- Next to Almeta Crayton, NAACP president Mary Ratliff is clearly Columbia's most visible and high-profile black leader. A striking figure who continues to preside over virtually every issue of community racial equity, Ratliff is both a powerful, conscientious voice -- and a lightning rod for criticism.
White critics openly wonder why she keeps protesting, and probably wish she'd just go away. Black critics label her "old school," a Civil Rights-era dinosaur on the road to extinction.
But Ratliff's supporters tell a different story. It is Mary, they remind, who keeps the flames of justice Martin Luther King, Jr. helped light 50 years ago burning brightly. It is her work organizing candidate forums, questioning authorities, and challenging the status quo that helps keep Columbia on the road to righteousness.
In a very real way, Columbia has Ratliff to thank for everything from the Columbia Citizens Police Review Board to the amazing Ward Reapportionment result that had virtually the whole town standing firm, fighting hard, and cheering victory. Ratliff's NAACP election forums are the highlight of every election season, with every candidate from every political race taking hard questions about where we've been -- and where we need to go.
To her critics and supporters, Ratliff's work has a simple message: When the struggle goes away, so will I -- but not until.


text:
Thief nabs 22 pricey pooches from pet store
By Ruby Gonzales | rugonzales@scng.com | San Gabriel Valley Tribune
PUBLISHED: November 8, 2007 at 12:00 am | UPDATED: August 29, 2017 at 2:21 am
LA MIRADA – A thief with a penchant for pricey pooches broke into a pet store early Wednesday and dognapped 22 puppies worth about $30,000.
Security video showed a man putting teacup Yorkshire terriers, Shih-Tzus, Chihuahuas, Maltese and Pekingese into a trash bag, said Paul Ro, 50, owner of Puppy Love.
"I'm so afraid these puppies might die soon. They must be stressed out," Ro said.
The puppies cost between $1,000 and $3,000 and ranged in age from 2 to 3 months.
Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Mills said the burglary happened sometime between 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Mills said that at 3:30 a.m. a security guard saw the glass front door of the business had been smashed. There are no suspects at this point.
The thief also swiped a $200 pet bed on display. He may have taken other items as well, but Ro said he wasn't certain.
The store at 14766 Beach Blvd. sells not only dogs but also dog food and accessories like handbags to carry one's furry companions, pet beds and canine clothing.
The thief cleaned out most of the store's canine inventory but missed a 1-year-old Yorkshire terrier and a 7-month-old Maltese in a pen plus a 3-month-old Pomeranian that was in a corner cage.
While Mills said he has seen cases of people walking in and grabbing dogs, he hasn't experienced an incident with this many taken.
He suspects the thief will sell the purloined pooches.
"Nobody wants 22 dogs unless (it is) to sell them," Mills said. "That's my guess. Why else steal 22 dogs?"
Ro is concerned about how his dogs are faring and made a plea to the thief.
"Please be gentle with the puppies. They are very vulnerable. They can't survive stresses. Take good care of those puppies. Please," Ro said.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the sheriff's Norwalk station at (562) 863-8711.
ruby.gonzales@sgvn.com
Asian parents who stress academic success could be hurting their children, expert says
New policy could squeeze money out of nonprofits looking to expand in Pasadena
Appellate court: Contractor can revive lawsuit to return $1.4 million to Montebello Unified
Deputy fatally shot at Jack in the Box is honored and remembered in downtown LA funeral and procession
Ruby Gonzales
Ruby Gonzales started working for the company in 1991. Since then she has written about cities, school districts, crimes, cold cases, courts, the San Gabriel River, local history, anime, insects, forensics and the early days of the Internet when people still referred to it as the "information superhighway." Her current beat includes breaking news, crimes and courts for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News and Whittier Daily News. When not in crime reporter mode, she frequents the remaining bookstores in the San Gabriel Valley, haunts craft stores or gets dragged to eateries by a relative who is a foodie.
Follow Ruby Gonzales	@RubyGonzales2
Heat wave fizzles, but another's on the way to Southern California

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Google may have the most popular search engine, but Bing certainly has the prettiest. Bing.com uses some absolutely stunning photos and images as backgrounds for its search page. Don't believe me? Check Here! These photos make awesome desktop background images for your computer. So, if you would like to download Bing background images, this quick tip post will show you how.
Once you have Firefox installed on your computer, downloading those cool-looking Bing backgrounds takes only a couple of clicks. See the example below.
Step 1 – First, right-click anywhere on the background image of the Bing homepage.
Step 2- Next, click "View Background Image" on the contextual menu that appears.
Step 3 – After you click "View Background Image," Firefox will open the photo in its own browser tab.
That's it; you're done. Now, you can use the new photo as a background image for your desktop or anything else you can think of. You shouldn't use them commercially, though, as they are the creative property of other people.
Below are some screenshots of what you will see if you try the above process with other browsers. Simply put, it won't work. There are, of course, other ways to download these images. But, they're all a bit more complicated.
Microsoft Internet Explorer – Not!
Hope you found this useful. Comment below if you want me to post a specific tutorial. Go ahead and shoot. I'll get it done.
Until the next one, take care and peace.


text:
This project uses the [Twitter Streaming APIs](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis) to search on a provided term. The results are then displayed, mapped, and the entities within the tweet aggregated and sorted by popularity.
I was looking for a reason to play with [web sockets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket) and the [socket.io](http://socket.io) library.
Twitter provided a great content source for streaming content.
This project also provided a good opportunity to make use of the [observer pattern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_pattern), both on the server and the browser.
As tweets come across the wire, various subscribers are notified and handle the incoming tweet to carry out their defined function. This is the first time I've used this pattern on a project using Node.js.
I also used [doT.js](http://olado.github.io/doT/) for client-side templating, which proved to be blazingly fast.

This will continue to be a learning/sandbox project.

## Configuration
Install dependencies.

	$ npm install
	$ bower install

Rename 'sample-config.js' to 'config.js' or obtain the decryption key for the Makefile.

Register a new application with [Twitter](https://dev.twitter.com/apps) or use the keys from an existing registered app. Update config.js with your consumerKey and consumerSecret.

Retrieve an [OAuth token and token secret](https://dev.twitter.com/apps) from Twitter.
Click on an application then click the "Oauth tool" tab. Update config.js with userToken and userTokenSecret.

Fire up the site

	npm start

Navigate to `http://localhost:8088/stream`

## Open Issues
I had hoped to host this project and allow multiple users to access their Twitter user stream. However I ran into an issue that prevented each user from receiving their individual stream.
As each new web socket stream is created, a new HTTP connection is opened to the Twitter API to receive the incoming stream. It seems that the last opened HTTP connection is intercepting
all incoming HTTP traffic from all HTTP streams to the Twitter streaming API.

For example if userA and userB both opened a stream, userB (who established their connection last) would receive the incoming stream from user A in addition to their own.
I was unable to diagnose the cause and a solution, this is a work in progress.

## Notes

Details on [rate limiting](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/rate-limiting/1.1) using the Twitter streaming API.
How to [authorize a request](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/auth/authorizing-request) with the Twitter API.
How to [filter statuses](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/post/statuses/filter) from the Twitter streaming API.
Only [one stream per IP address](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis/streams/public#Connections) is allowed.
Useful [Node.js Twitter Client](https://github.com/ttezel/twit) used for this project.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


King Financial Repair is the GREATEST. Withtheir help, my credit score has went up 100 points and still working! I have never seen a harder worker than Julia King. She is thorough, precise, and helpful in every way, I would HIGHLY recemmend!


Modern weddings might often look like complete departures from weddings of the past, however, many brides choose to inject tradition into their big day. Bouquet tosses that predict the next marriage, arranging your something old and something new, and avoiding your groom until you walk down the aisle are some of the most time-honored traditions that have been etched into many couple's wedding plans for decades. Many brides just know from the moment they get engaged these rituals will play a role in their event and many don't give it a second thought. For example, saving the top tier of your wedding cake is something many brides just do. But have you ever asked why? Today we will talk about this great tradition, why we do it, and share tips to make sure you to can have your cake and eat it too!
The tradition of saving the top tier dates back to the early 19th century. Tiered cakes made their debut during this time and each tier served a very important purpose. The bottom would be cut and served at the wedding, the middle would be packed up and sent off with departing guests, and the top would be saved for a very special future occasion for bride and groom.
The occasion? Back then it was the christening of the couple's first child, that's right, babies! Since most women would celebrate the birth of their first child within the first year of marriage, couples would save the small top tier to celebrate, instead of buying another expensive cake. Today many couples wait to have children until later in marriage, leading to the celebration of the first year of marriage instead.
Now let's talk about the steps you need to take if you want to save the top tier of your wedding cake.
Talk to your cake designer. Let them know your plan and make sure they provide a small box upon delivery to ensure that your top tier actually has a place to go.
Designate someone to be responsible for it. If your leaving straight on your honeymoon make sure one of your bridesmaids or even your parents know they are tasked with taking the top tier home and putting it in the freezer.
Protect it. After you return from your honeymoon take the cake out of the box, wrap it in saran wrap and then place it in a large Ziploc bag. This will keep the cake from getting dreaded freezer burn.
If all this sounds like to much work, ask your cake designer if they provided anniversary cakes! (many modern bakeries now offer this option). For an additional fee, the bakery can provide you with a brand new top tier of your original wedding cake to be redeemed on your one year anniversary.
So whether you're celebrating one year of marriage, the birth of your first child, or simply whatever you want to, you can relive the magic of your wedding by sharing a sweet treat together!
Want more tips on all things weddings? Contact Magnificent Moments Weddings, we would love to help you plan your big day!


The Younger Lawyers Division of the Federal Bar Association is hosting the 2019 Supreme Court Admissions Ceremony on Monday, May 20, 2019 at the United States Supreme Court. As in years past, we will be inviting the Justices to join us for a breakfast reception after the ceremony. Although the Younger Lawyers Division sponsors this event, FBA members of all ages and levels of practice are welcome to participate. While some believe that the highlight of the day is being sworn in before the Supreme Court Justices in the historic courtroom of the highest court in the land, many others find the breakfast reception to be equally memorable. Each year we have been joined by one or two Justices. Whatever your preference, joining the most elite bar in the United States is an experience that will last a lifetime.
We hope you will consider participating in the 2019 Supreme Court Admissions Ceremony. Applications for this year's ceremony will be accepted starting Monday, February 18, 2019 and must be submitted via mail, along with the appropriate payment, to the Federal Bar Association at the address below. Applications must be received by 5:00 PM EST on Monday, April 1, 2019 in order to be considered for this year's ceremony. Instructions for admission to the Supreme Court Bar can be found here.
• A completed application consists of a typed first and second page of the application (which must include original, wet ink signatures from each of your two sponsors), a Certificate of Good Standing from the highest court where the attorney has been practicing for the past three years (only one is needed), and the $200.00 application fee.
• Applications should be assembled with the first and second pages of the application on top, next the certificate of good standing from the highest state court, and then the applicant's check. Paper clipped together -- PLEASE DO NOT STAPLE. The admission fee is $200.00. Make checks payable to the "Supreme Court of the U.S." Checks should be dated May 20, 2019.
• There will be a breakfast for all admittees and their guests. If you plan to attend the breakfast, please include a check made payable to the Federal Bar Association for $15 per person attending the breakfast. If you are bringing a guest, please include their name on the check.
• All signatures on the second page of the application must be original (wet ink) and must be on the same sheet. If you will be attending the ceremony in person, do not fill out the area entitled "Motion for Admission" at the bottom of the second page. Please make sure the Certification, Statement of Sponsors, and Oath of Admission sections have all been signed and dated.
• The seating capacity of the courtroom is limited. Children under six may not be admitted to the Courtroom. The number of guests in the courtroom is limited to ONE PER APPLICANT.
The ceremony is limited to 50 applicants and applications will be processed in the order that they are received. Once your application is received, we will review it to make certain it meets all requirements set forth by the Court. If there are any deficiencies, we will contact you and use our best efforts to attempt to make all necessary modifications.
The ceremony will be followed by a breakfast reception. All of the newly admitted applicants and their guests will return to the conference room. We have traditionally been joined by Justices during the breakfast reception.
Each admittee may bring one guest to the ceremony. Space in the courtroom is severely limited and security concerns make it impossible to permit a large number of people into the room. Consequently, we cannot guarantee that guests will be admitted to the courtroom for the ceremony; however, our attempts to seat guests in past years has been successful. Guests are welcome to join the admittees at the reception after the ceremony.


text:
This is a unique time to come into leadership as this Chamber's Chair of the Board. Over the past year, we have rallied together as a business community, listened to your priorities and concerns, and supported each other when in need. This again shows Riverside's true character of working together. The world has definitely changed but communities like Riverside are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as students are returning safely to school and customers are visiting their favorite businesses.
The challenges that lay ahead are an opportunity for your Chamber to continue as the catalyst for business growth, a convener of leaders and influencers to get things done, and a champion for our local community.
We must keep advocating that Riverside is a major hub of a regional economy and we need the means to foster its growth. We must have the jobs, housing, infrastructure, healthcare, and more importantly, the funding from Sacramento and Washington, DC to achieve our potential.
Like many communities, Riverside is forging its own path of recovery and economic growth. The opening of the California Air Resources Board Southern California Headquarters this year will be an incredible realization of several years of work. It is also a launch pad for more as we pivot from this new facility through a "Green Team" partnership of the Chamber, the County, the City, and UCR to attract the businesses and investors that see Riverside as a hub for technology and innovation as we house the air quality research center of the world.
In Riverside, we have the workforce with new graduates and skilled employees from our community college and universities. New objectives such as the UCR OASIS project will work to bring sustainability, advanced technology, and social inclusion within a common space for students and the community.
We already have the centers of innovation here such as March Air Reserve Base and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division where the latest technologies are developed, tested, and put in the field. We will continue to safeguard their impact in the region due to their significant economic impact.
We have a very long list of goals and objectives, and I am deeply honored and humbled to serve as Chair of the Board for this Chamber. Our past Chair of the Board, Gary Montgomery, did a great job this year and I look forward to continuing his momentum of success. Clearly, there is a lot of work ahead of us. If we pull our resources together and maintain our relationships, then Riverside will continue to accomplish great things for our region.
Tom Nightingale


text:
08/01/2018 — Amber B.
Learning From Our Enemies
It has been almost two years since the success of the british nationalists in the Brexit vote. Where have they gone? Nationalism, although still a simmering threat throughout the First World, seems to have been defeated, at least temporarily, in britain, not by organized anti-fascism and a strong working class movement, but by their own victory in the polls. How? The prospect that success can be so devastating to a movement that they have not recovered in almost two years is bewildering. One would expect that with great success would come great reward, and that a new stage had been reached by the nationalist right wherein their dreams would shape reality. Yet, that hasn't happened. UKIP has flagged, and no large nationalist parties have yet taken its place. Neo-fascist street gangs still exist, indeed, yet they are hardly poised, as UKIP postured, to take state power in the foreseeable future.
Their mistake was not winning, but having choked political creativity and strategic mindsets with overly pragmatic, tactical ones. Indeed we as much as they need tactics as well as strategy, pragmatism as well as principles, but to rely on only one or the other is folly, and a hard-learned lesson for those who see it through. The nationalist movement in britain was destroyed by their own success, without any real imagination or preparation for victory, they saw history foist upon them conditions they had not planned for. Interestingly enough, looking back one could question whether or not Nigel Farage, once the ugly figurehead of british nationalism, even wanted to win. He, after all, was so quick to give his concessionary speech, assuming prematurely that they had lost. Perhaps he even wanted to lose. We cannot say for certain, but in retrospect many have come to regret their victory.
What they had succeeded in was having focused all the right-wing and nationalist energies in britain toward the singular goal of leaving the european union. They trimmed away all other objectives, as this was the most realizable goal, around which the broadest possible alliance of rightists and nationalists could be achieved. It was a good strategy, or at least it could have been, if it had not stifled all internal political creativity and reduced balanced programs to a single-issue movement. All politics were to be oriented around this rather unimaginative post. There were many reasons that they wanted to leave the european union, from economic concerns to border security—although the latter was certainly more influential—but there were few long-term solutions; no creative alternative societies were imagined, and no institutions for its advancement were prepared.
After all, who was it who took power in Cameron's stead? Was it Nigel Farage or another fiery nationalist leader, prepared to implement a prearranged and succinct political program? No, it was Theresa May, someone who had not even been historically sold on Brexit. In fact, none of the politicians in the lineup really were. Even the Trump-like goblin, Boris Johnson, had spent time advocating Turkey's admission into the e.u. just years before, only becoming a Brexiteer after it had gained traction. The overall political lineup for the post-Brexit government included mostly opportunists who had little to no connection to its organic roots. None of them had any idea how to manage a post-Brexit world, and so they predictably ran it straight into the ground.
This was advantageous for those on the left, in its wake we have seen a declining economic situation and an unstable currency, both predicted by its opposition. The conservative party, who have been charged with stewarding the country toward "independence" from europe, have failed so miserably that many have begun to inquire about a "way out" of the nightmare, back into the relative safety and comfort of europe. None exists, however. All sales are final, according to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the european commission. The principal error of the nationalists was in neglecting the strategic transformation that took place with the initiation of article 50. Material conditions had changed, yet they did not. Without a hegemonic outlook, they were condemned to an unsatisfactory success, with their maximum program having been completed.
In the united $tates we are faced with a similar situation. The whole of the "left" coalition has been hastily built around the project of anti-fascism, or simply anti-trumpism, with the democrats at the helm. The totality of their demands has been oriented around a simple call for impeachment, and among the most advanced, the removal of both Trump and Pence, although the mechanism for this is entirely unclear. There is no "revolutionary" program more reformist than this one, which does not even propose an alternative leadership to replace the one being tossed out. The left is effectively being instrumentalized to remove Trump and maybe Pence without any real thought put into what to do after that is achieved. It is difficult to say if the democrats even know what they want to get out of this.
Even for the democratic party, who remain the only real electoral alternative to the republican party, and only a hair's width away from a majority in either house, every victory draws wind from their sails. Rather than being energized by their successes, they are taxed enormously for them, and each one seems to come at a slimmer margin than the last. Such was the case in Alabama, where hardly anyone knew a thing about Doug Jones, but knew everything about Roy Moore. The democratic strategy seems to rely on uninspiring fear mongering, rather than energetic programs. This is to be expected among the moribund neoliberal parties, however, and there is nothing we, as communists, can or should do to improve their prospects.
They've chosen a hill to die on, but we don't have to. Yet, if we continue to insist on unprincipled blanket unity on the flimsy basis of removing Trump from office, or even defeating the alt-right, then their collapse will be ours too. We need to create an inspiring, energetic and creative movement against not only far-right populism, but capitalism-imperialism overall. One that is not shackled to the fate of the so-called resistance. This means developing programs and immediate activities which prepare us for the possibility of victory on this front. If after the removal of Trump we have developed no institutions or programs to focus residual energy against the moribund neoliberals, then we will suffer the same fate as our enemies did after Brexit. We will have forfeited long-term hegemonic gains for a short-lived victory, benefiting actors that are, by and large, not us.
If we can assert ourselves as a counter-hegemonic movement, and one with a real revolutionary program and political center, then we stand to benefit perhaps even more than the democrats after the defeat of Trump or the alt-right. Their directionlessness and overall lack of energy will cause their deflation, while the revolutionary center offers a genuine alternative to the lack of leadership offered by the democratic party. This requires organization and preparedness, which can only come through the experience and power of institutions, and the centralization of revolutionary efforts. To pursue any other path is liquidationist, and effectively surrenders our hegemony to the flailing neoliberals and emergent far-right. We would, in effect, be setting the stage for our enemies to ascend, in the same way Brexit had effectively sabotaged the right.
We cannot become a victim of our own success, or that of the democrats. An ironic possible plus is the fact that the left has very few successes generally. Although the broad task of removing Trump and combating the alt-right offers the prospect of many useful temporary alliances, it must always be our institutions which we devote the most resources to, and our own programs which we invest the most energy into developing. While the struggle against Trumpian populism and the alt-right may be, for the moment, the most powerful and broad struggle, we must remember the fundamental contradiction is between capital and labor, and that in the era of imperialism, this manifests itself in the struggle between the imperialists and the Third World.
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The Accrington and District Weavers', Winders' and Warpers' Friendly Association was a trade union representing cotton weavers in the Accrington area of Lancashire, in England.

The union stated that it was founded in 1858, although the Board of Trade claimed that it had been founded in 1856.  It was originally named the Accrington Power Loom Weavers' Association, and worked closely with the Accrington Co-operative Society.  Its founders, Richard Lord, James Parkinson and Thomas Parkinson had previously worked in Settle.

By 1863, the union had 550 members, and it affiliated to the East Lancashire Amalgamated Weavers' Friendly Association.  It undertook a major strike in 1878, but was defeated after nine weeks, and lost most of its membership.  However, the union survived, and by 1884 it had rebuilt its strength, for the first time employing a full-time general secretary.  That year, it became a founder member of the Amalgamated Weavers' Association.

Membership of the union continued to grow, reaching 4,500 in 1910, the large majority of whom were women.  In 1930, it simplified its name by removing the word "Friendly".  It began losing members, as the Lancashire cotton industry declined, and in 1949 the Church and Oswaldtwistle Weavers', Winders' and Warpers' Association joined it, forming the Accrington, Church and Oswaldtwistle Weavers', Winders' and Warpers' Association.  It survived until 1981, when it merged into the Northern Textile and Allied Workers' Union.

General Secretaries
1884: Henry Heap
1908: J. R. Emmett
1937: F. Coleman
1940s: William Ridehalgh
1950s: W. Smith
1960s: P. G. Walker

References

Defunct trade unions of the United Kingdom
Accrington
Cotton industry trade unions
1858 establishments in the United Kingdom
1981 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Trade unions established in 1858
Trade unions disestablished in 1981
Trade unions based in Lancashire

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Kelina Hospital is an emerging centre of excellence in medical and surgical care located in Abuja FCT, Nigeria. Established as a private institution in the tradition of the world's best hospitals, Kelina aims for the highest standards in patient care and surgical expertise nationally and worldwide.
Our management and staff are committed to continually acquire and apply the most current knowledge and technical skills in the treatment of our patients, and we do this with the utmost respect for the dignity and privacy of each individual.
We invite you to browse around our website for information that may be useful for your health, or when you might need our assistance for yourself, a family member, or a friend.


Rule 1: Always wear black.
Rule 2: Never wake a sleeping dragon.
Rule 3: Never underestimate a dragon.
Rule 4: Never approach a dragon from behind.
Rule 5: Until a dragon stops glowing, never stop firing.
Rule 6: Keep your scent off the wind; if possible, cover yourself in dragon feces.
Rule 7: Never try to befriend a dragon. Curiosity leads to death.
Rule 8: Never attempt to distract a dragon with food. You are food.
Rule 9: Kill a dragon fast. Take pictures afterward.
Rule 10: NEVER HUNT ALONE!
Only trained professionals should participate in dragon hunts. All dragon hunts must be sanctioned by the Bureau of Dragon Affairs. Unauthorized hunts that don't end in the death of the hunter will lead to heavy fines and possible jail time.


Thanks to my friend Queen Suzi for sharing this with me.
December's Full Moon is going to help us all awaken our emotions, particularly surrounding ourselves, our family and our loved ones.
The last Full Moon of the year falls in the watery and emotional sign of Cancer on December 25th, 2015.
This the first Full Moon to fall on Christmas Day since 1977 and it also peaks at 11:11 am UTC, a time of great awakening and spiritual significance.
The Moon represents the epitome of feminine or yin energy. She represents the intuitive side of life and her energy gently moves us away from the logical and into our deepest thoughts and feelings.
Mother Moon loves to be in the sign of Cancer as it is where she feels most comfortable, most supported and most able to do her best work.
This means that while the Moon is in Cancer we will all be feeling a mixture of intensity and pleasure.
In fact, love is definitely in the air on this Full Moon and we are really going to be supported by the Universe to show our love and affection, not only towards others but also towards ourselves.
We are all going to be challenged to nurture our intuitive, emotional and sensitive sides in order to become better communicators and better lovers.
It is through relationships that we really learn the art of giving and receiving, and Mother Moon is really going to be reminding us that we are in charge and responsible for this flow being in harmony.
During four days either side of this Full Moon, we are all going to be reminded of the power of our thoughts and feelings and how they help us to navigate through this material world.
We are both spiritual and physical beings and we can't ignore either side of life.
As we close out 2015, this Full Moon has come as a gift to remind us of our spiritual nature, to remind us of our ability to touch, feel and sense things and to remind us that we are all connected in this Universe.
This Full Moon is going to be helping us all to finally awaken, to finally process and feel all that we have needed to feel through the course of this year and to finally be at peace with all that has come our way.
Even though the aspects surrounding this Full Moon are harmonious they are also emotional, which means that Christmas Day could feel overwhelming for many.
Practicing kindness and compassion towards others and yourself is the perfect way to get through the days surrounding the Full Moon.
Emotions may be tender, so be gentle and patient with yourself and others, and know that everything that arises is really shifting relationships in your life onto a higher and more conscious level.
Saturn and Neptune will also continue to do their dance across the sky and their energy will peak well into 2016.
This energy will be requiring all of us to balance our reality and the physical world with our sixth sensory perception and our emotions.
It is no longer supported to move through this world focusing on just the physical and material side.
It is no longer supported to believe that our emotions, feelings and dreams don't offer some sort of compass as to how we should navigate through our lives.
All of this energy will peak on the Full Moon and will remind us about our purpose, who we are and where we are heading.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience and if you haven't already been living your life this way, you may be gently reminded and prodded by the Universe at this time.
December's Full Moon is really here to help us deepen the relationship that we have with ourselves and to help us explore both our physical and spiritual sides in order to better understand our purpose and our journey.
This entry was posted in Astrology, Astronomy, Culture, Gratitude, Healing, Mythology, Peace, Spiritual, Word Press and tagged Astrology, Blue, Christmas Full Moon, Intuitive Astrology, Metaphysical, Spiritual, Susana Del Carmen Prohias, Transformation.
Perfectly in alignment for me. Thanks for this.
Thank you Sindy. Great information.


The dress is gorgeous and arrived the next day, great price and worth every cent! Make sure to order by your measurements and not your typical size.
This is a gorgeous dress. It is very well made and shipped much faster than expected.
beautiful, just like in the picture.
Looks very nice and we ordered the exact size and it fit well.
Thank you very powerful customer service!
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Gorgeous looking dress + Affordable price + Dresses123.com = Magical night Thank you.
The halter neck and ruffles on this dress are so unusual and gorgeous! They really add something special to the simple nature of the dress, the full shape and flowing skirt are perfectly romantic! It was shipped on time and despite the box being a bit damaged the dress was in perfect condition.


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Das Stadtbad war ein öffentliches Schwimmbad in Koblenz. Das Hallenbad wurde 1966 in der Altstadt neben der Balduinbrücke eröffnet. Im Sommer 2012 wurde es wegen Baufälligkeit geschlossen, nur der Saunabetrieb konnte noch kurzfristig aufrechterhalten werden. Von Januar bis Mai 2015 wurde das Stadtbad schließlich abgerissen. Ein Neubau wird auf einem Areal am Moselbogen im Stadtteil Rauental errichtet.

Geschichte

Vorgängerbauten

Noch bis ins 20. Jahrhundert befanden sich in Koblenz öffentliche Flussbadeanstalten an Rhein und Mosel. Das Residenzbad in der Kastorpfaffenstraße war das erste Hallenbad in der Stadt (). Es wurde 1900–1901 vom Koblenzer Architekten Ludwig Schweitzer im Jugendstil erbaut und besaß ein 14-Meter-Becken.

Bei den Luftangriffen auf Koblenz im Zweiten Weltkrieg schwer beschädigt, wurde es zunächst provisorisch wiederhergestellt, so dass der Betrieb wieder aufgenommen werden konnte. Mit Bau des neuen Stadtbads an der Balduinbrücke wurde das Residenzbad am 7. Juli 1966 geschlossen. Danach wurde es abgerissen und anschließend das Areal mit neuen Wohnblöcken bebaut.

Stadtbad

Ein neues Hallenbad wurde auf den Ruinen des im Zweiten Weltkrieg zerstörten Bassenheimer Hofes (neben dem gleichfalls zerstörten Dominikanerkloster Koblenz und der Balduinbrücke) in der Weißer Gasse erbaut. Das neue Stadtbad wurde am 12. Juli 1966 nach zweijähriger Bauzeit eröffnet. Die Baukosten betrugen etwa 6,5 Millionen DM ( €). Seit der Eröffnung nutzte u. a. der SC Poseidon Koblenz das Stadtbad für Training und Wettkämpfe, einige der in der Koblenzer Innenstadt gelegenen Schulen hielten hier ihren Schwimmunterricht ab.

Nachdem das Stadtbad seit 2008 wegen der schlechten Bausubstanz von Fachleuten überwacht wurde, musste das Hallenbad schließlich im Sommer 2012 endgültig wegen Baufälligkeit geschlossen werden. In den Jahren zuvor hatte man noch versucht, die gravierendsten Mängel in baulicher und technischer Hinsicht zu beseitigen. Allerdings mehr provisorisch, da sich bereits seit Jahren abzeichnete, dass eine grundlegende Sanierung oder ein Neubau notwendig sein würde. Im November 2012 wurde bekannt, dass das Hallenbad abgerissen werden muss, da ein Einsturz droht. Die Besucher müssen nun auf die anderen beiden Bäder, das Beatusbad in der Goldgrube und das Schulbad auf der Karthause, ausweichen. Im Januar 2015 begannen die Arbeiten für den Abriss des alten Stadtbad-Gebäudes, die im Mai 2015 abgeschlossen wurden. Auf dem Areal wurde danach die Wohnanlage "Weißer Höfe" mit Tiefgarage gebaut. Ein Neubau ist, nach jahrelangen Verzögerungen durch unklare Finanzierung und der letztendlich aufgegebenen Suche nach einem Investor, auf einem freien Grundstück im Rauental im Gange.

Ausstattung

Das Stadtbad war mit einem Sportbecken mit 25-Meter-Bahnen, einem Nichtschwimmerbecken, einem Sprungturm mit 3 m und 5 m Höhe, einem 3 m-Sprungbrett und zwei 1 m-Sprungbrettern ausgestattet. Daneben befand sich eine Sauna und eine Dampfsauna in dem Gebäude.

Literatur

 Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (Hrsg.): Geschichte der Stadt Koblenz. Gesamtredaktion: Ingrid Bátori in Verbindung mit Dieter Kerber und Hans Josef Schmidt
 Bd. 1: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende der kurfürstlichen Zeit. Theiss, Stuttgart 1992. ISBN 3-8062-0876-X
 Bd. 2: Von der französischen Stadt bis zur Gegenwart. Theiss, Stuttgart 1993. ISBN 3-8062-1036-5

Weblinks

 Stadtbad Koblenz

Einzelnachweise

Badeanlage in Rheinland-Pfalz
Bauwerk der Moderne in Koblenz
Sportstätte in Koblenz
Abgegangenes Bauwerk in Koblenz
Erbaut in den 1960er Jahren
Zerstört in den 2010er Jahren


text:
https://apnews.com/article/utah-jazz-nba-sports-joe-ingles-donovan-mitchell-2e4df77a1d9953011a3b9bb65fd258bc
Utah's Ingles out after MRI shows torn ACL in right knee
Utah Jazz guard Joe Ingles (2) argues with an official in the first half during an NBA basketball game against the Phoenix Suns Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles tore a ligament in his right knee that will require surgery.
Ingles is out indefinitely after an MRI on Monday revealed a torn anterior cruciate ligament. He will have surgery in the coming weeks.
Ingles was injured in the second quarter of the Jazz's game Sunday night at Minnesota. His left leg buckled as he drove to the basket with 5:52 remaining, and the Target Center crowd fell silent while he was treated on the floor.
The seven-year veteran had to be helped off the court. The Jazz were already shorthanded with the absences of Donovan Mitchell (concussion) and Rudy Gobert (left calf strain).
Ingles, Utah's all-time 3-point leader, was averaging 7.2 points, 3.5 assists and 2.9 rebounds in 45 appearances this season.
The Jazz are 30-21 and in fourth in the Western Conference standings this season but they have lost their last five straight games.


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text:
Illuminati Pentagrams Hidden in Plain Sight
David Veritas
One of the more common Illuminati Symbols found hidden in plain sight world wide is the Pentagram. The Pentagram is best known for its use – inverted – in occult and Satanic rituals. However it can be found in many variations, right side up as well as inverted hidden in artwork and on buildings.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both believed to be Illuminati Elite, appointed a freemason to include a pentagram in the layout of the nation's Capitol.
Below Are 10 Illuminati Pentagrams (Hidden in Sight)
1: Illuminati Pentagram overtly displayed on building in Hannover, Germany.
2: Eljaröd Church, Tomelilla Municipality, Scania, Diocese of Lund, Sweden.
3: Exterior of Cathédrale Notre-Dame (Rose windows of Amiens Cathedral)
4: St. Merri's Church Paris France (Église Saint-Merri)
If you look closely you will see the inverted pentagram on top middle section of the stained glass.
5: U.S. Army Medal of Honor (Congressional Medal of Honor) 1944
This inverted pentagram Illuminati symbol was found in U.S. Office of War Information, 1944.
6: French Combat Insignia with Illuminati Pentagram Symbolism
7: Illuminati Symbol Pentagram Coat of Arms Family Wappen Schaffhausen
8: Illuminati Symbol Pentagram Temple of Jupiter
9: Illuminati Pentagram Symbol on Portal to a Gothic Church
10: Illuminati Pentagram Symbol on Building in Moscow
In this article:Freemasons, illuminati, Paganism, Pentagrams, satanism, Symbolism
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The business is in Arlington, VA on the ground floor of a Condominium built in 2007. The business signed a 10-year commercial lease on the property which runs through December 31 st , 2024.
There are a limited number of niche players in the market. However this company is the leading provider of sunless services in the DC area. There is no match in quality, scale or expertise anywhere else in the market. This business has tenure and has been growing strongly over the last 11 years. Large customer base and membership programs also push growth.
The business continues to grow on an annual basis, however expanding the business to satellite locations in various gyms or other salons, starting a mobile unit to serve clients in their homes, and/or opening a second studio location in a strategic area would further increase growth and long-term potential.
The owner and tenured employees are very knowledgeable in the business and will provide training and transition to ensure the new buyer has all the tools to be successful.


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Nasdaq Joins Blockchain Party, Testing on Private Market
Nasdaq has become the latest financial heavyweight to be toying with blockchain technology.
Leon Pick | Innovation ( CryptoCurrency ) | Monday, 11/05/2015 | 12:12 GMT+2 2015-05-11T10:12:48+00:00 2015-05-11T10:12:48+00:00
Nasdaq has become the latest financial heavyweight to be toying with blockchain technology. It is reportedly testing the technology to see how it can streamline the trading and settlement of shares on its exchange.
The trial is taking place on its Private Market, a marketplace launched last year to handle the trading of pre-IPO shares. Seventy-five private companies currently use the facility. Shares are currently transferred in a highly manual process that includes lawyers maintaining spreadsheets by hand.
Bitcoin's blockchain is envisioned to speed up the transfer of securities and bring down costs. For example, instead of the traditional three-day settlement period, share transfers can be settled in near real-time. This can greatly reduce counterparty risk and eliminate the need for billions in capital traditionally kept aside as insurance against it. If successful, the technology can be potentially adapted to Nasdaq's main stock exchange.
Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld said that the technology can benefit both the exchange's clients and the broader capital markets. He said, "Utilizing the blockchain is a natural digital evolution for managing physical securities."
While it would seem to be a no-brainer, regulators have until now been hesitant to employ untested technology. The blockchain's current validation procedure also relies on miners, who can operate anonymously and theoretically pose a threat to the network.
Nasdaq has in fact been increasing its involvement with Bitcoin from various angles during the past twelve months. Last year, there were reports of it competing to become a central bitcoin trading hub. It is also envisioned as the venue for trading of the proposed Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, which is still pending regulatory approval. More recently, its technology was adapted by Noble Markets to power its bitcoin marketplace. The Stockholm Stock Exchange, which is part of the NASDAQ OMX group, will also be hosting an exchange traded note (ETN) based on bitcoin. The latest move is reflective of the broader shift in recognizing Bitcoin more for its technology and less as a currency or investment.
The development may be good news and bad news for other players that have already gotten started with such work. Overstock.com is seeking to create a "cryptosecurity" marketplace, and recently indicated in a filing that it aims to issue $500 million of its own securities through such technology. The Blythe Masters-led Digital Asset holdings is planning on building a secure facility for trading digital currency, but is also looking into digitizing traditional securities. If taking bets, one would pick the regulated, well-established financial player as best positioned to win the race. But at least the smaller players would be satisfied to know that their visions are being fulfilled somewhere and that society will benefit.
Nasdaq joins the growing list of financial heavyweights considering the adoption of blockchain technology, which now includes UBS, Bank of NY Mellon and USAA. India-based banking software provider Infosys is also examining the technology. Several other institutions have already adopted Ripple's protocol for currency transfers.
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