tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33082015437617016842024-02-19T01:45:52.483-08:00From The Desk Of Matt PeeblesPeebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-49119646529945647082011-07-27T15:01:00.000-07:002011-07-27T15:02:32.186-07:00You know the saying, "Human see, human do."<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 13px; "><div class="timestamp" style="margin-top: 15px; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal !important; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(168, 24, 23); ">July 27, 2011</div><div class="kicker" style="font-weight: normal; color: black; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 15px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.4em; "></div><h1 style="font-size: 2.4em; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.083em; "><nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" ">Apes From the Future, Holding a Mirror to Today</nyt_headline></h1><nyt_byline><h6 class="byline" style="margin-top: 2px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; ">By <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/r/terrence_rafferty/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Terrence Rafferty" class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">TERRENCE RAFFERTY</a></h6></nyt_byline><nyt_text><div id="articleBody"><nyt_correction_top></nyt_correction_top><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">THE evolution of species takes place over millenniums. Pop-culture franchises just don’t have that kind of time. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/person/531722/Rupert-Wyatt?inline=nyt-per" title="" class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Rupert Wyatt</a>’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” opening Aug. 5, is the seventh film about the peculiarly advanced simians invented by Pierre Boulle in his 1963 novel<a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=38295;246306&inline=nyt_ttl" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Planet of the Apes”</a> and the first in 10 years. The last “Apes” picture, directed by Tim Burton, was a remake of Franklin J. Schaffner’s original 1968 adaptation of the Boulle novel; the first film generated four sequels, a couple of TV series (one live action, one animated), a line of comic books and a jungleful of merchandise before the brand began to peter out, ceding its dominance to other, stronger market beasts like <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/46636/Star-Wars/overview" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Star Wars”</a> and “Batman.” The apes had a nice run, but nothing lasts forever. Species die out. Empires fall. Profits decline. New heads of studios rise.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Boulle’s idea, though, is so powerful that it may be immune to the vicissitudes of natural — and even artificial — selection. He imagined an upside-down world in which apes, our ancestors, have become more civilized than humans and feel perfectly justified in treating us like dumb animals: hunting us for sport, keeping us in cages, using us as the subjects of extremely unpleasant scientific experiments. In the first “Planet of the Apes” movie, humans really don’t appear to deserve much respect: they can’t reason and don’t use language. When three American astronauts land on the planet, the apes understandably fail to distinguish these new specimens from the unevolved species they’re accustomed to. One of the earthmen, named Taylor (Charlton Heston), tries to persuade his captors that he’s different, but it’s a heavy lift; the existence of an articulate, rational human is an affront to both ape science and ape religion. (The idea of Heston as the most evolved exemplar of the species may take some getting used to for nonsimians too.)</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">It’s a witty notion, of a kind that characterized old-school science fiction: the fantastic “what if?” premise that allows the writer to examine the conditions of his own time from a different perspective. The novel and the first movie, which had a screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, came out at the height of the cold war, when bomb anxiety made the end of the humanity as we know it seem a not entirely fanciful notion. In the film’s famous final sequence, Taylor, having escaped from the apes, sees the head of the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/statue_of_liberty/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about the Statue of Liberty." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Statue of Liberty</a> on the beach and realizes to his horror that he has been on a post-nuclear-holocaust Earth all along. (Thanks to relativity, his space odyssey has landed him a couple of thousand years into the future.) Nuclear worries may not be as high as they were in the 1960s, but the image still resonates. We know that our species hasn’t yet developed to the point where blowing ourselves up is unthinkable.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">But most of the interest of the original “Planet of the Apes” and its sequels lies in their skewed, satiric take on human nature. The apes are disconcertingly like us, and it’s fun both to imagine them as better than we are and to watch their civilization developing some very familiar discontents. They have race and class issues and a rather rigid social hierarchy: orangutans rule, gorillas enforce, and chimpanzees do most of the intellectual work — subject to the approval of the orangutans, who sit in judgment like the Académie Française or the Holy Office. The chimp scientists who try to save Taylor are accused of heresy: the orangutans and the gorillas are, to an ape, staunch creationists.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">In the four immediate sequels — <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/4812/Beneath-the-Planet-of-the-Apes/overview" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Beneath the Planet of the Apes”</a> (1970), <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/16041/Escape-From-the-Planet-of-the-Apes/overview" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Escape From the Planet of the Apes”</a> (1971), <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/10815/Conquest-of-the-Planet-of-the-Apes/overview" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Conquest of the Planet of the Apes”</a> (1972) and “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” (1973) — the back story of humankind’s demise and the apes’ ascent gets filled in a bit, with tricky timelines. In <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/401426/Beneath/overview" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Beneath,”</a> whose action takes place not long after that of the original, Earth is destroyed a second time; in <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=125326;154987;16016;143429;90550;90548;16017;125325;342031;152676;455006;90549;125324&inline=nyt_ttl" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Escape,”</a> two chimp scientists who have managed to get off the planet before the cataclysm land back in Los Angeles in the 1970s, where they are greeted with the same sort of skepticism and fear that Taylor encountered in ape society. (The movie even borrows a few incidents and plot points from Boulle’s novel, transposing them from human to ape.) These chimps, Zira and Cornelius (Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowell), are a married couple and in the course of the movie have a baby. They’re the Adam and Eve of the super-apes, and in the two final installments their son, who calls himself Caesar (McDowell), leads his band of merry primates in battle against the steadily devolving humans.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">The sequels are of wildly variable quality. “Beneath” and “Battle” are, in impressively varied ways, quite terrible; <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=10801;429083;130613;154951;173708;429166;72469;10803&inline=nyt_ttl" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Conquest,”</a> a kind of simian “Battle of Algiers” with overtones of the late-’60s Los Angeles race riots, is fast paced and has a pleasing B-movie shamelessness to it. “Escape,” directed by Don Taylor, is actually pretty good; like the novel and the first film, it’s more about ideas (and jokes) than spectacular primate action.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Taken together the movies constitute a cleverly worked out and (mostly) consistent mythology: an alternative, hairier, book of Genesis. The new “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” although it too features an überchimp named Caesar, consigns that bomb-based mythology to the dustbin of made-up history and instead attributes the origin of the super-species to genetic engineering: different anxieties for different times.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">This reinvention of pop scripture is, of course, a risk: “Planet of the Apes” fundamentalists may reject it as heresy. But it’s probably inevitable. Show business, like evolution, is an inexorable and unforgiving process: those who fail to adapt are doomed to extinction. The real danger lies less in rethinking the story than in violating the basic nature of the original series’s kind of science fiction.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">The temptation of technology is hard for 21st-century humans to resist, and the special-effects capabilities of film have improved exponentially in the four decades since Heston was beleaguered by a bunch of actors in monkey suits. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/325503/Rise-Blood-Hunter/overview" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Rise”</a> makes use, as <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=158896;449423;442069;441249;384764&inline=nyt_ttl" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“Avatar”</a> and Peter Jackson’s <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/gst/movies/titlelist.html?v_idlist=27392;289249;27391&inline=nyt_ttl" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">“King Kong”</a> did, of what’s called performance-capture technology, with a human actor modeling gestures and expressions that will be digitized for the screen. This movie’s Caesar is “played” by Andy Serkis, who did similar duty in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (as Gollum) and “King Kong”; he’s making a remarkable career of interpreting the emotions of the not quite human.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">The apes will look, and move, better than they ever have. But it has to be said that the movie science fiction of the original Apes era, with its now laughably primitive effects, in some ways benefited from its technical crudeness: the spectacle rarely got in the way of the ideas, and when the ideas are engaging, as they are in the first “Planet of the Apes” and “Escape,” the simple effects function like sketches, indications of some greater, not fully realized, narrative and intellectual architecture. (When the ideas are no good, you get “Plan Nine From Outer Space.”) Spectacle and thought aren’t mutually exclusive, by any means. But we humans are, at this stage of our evolution, mighty distractable: so many bright, glittery things to see, so little time. In the recent past our movies (including, sadly, Mr. Burton’s 2001 version of “Planet”) have been making an all too convincing argument for the decline of the species.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">But a few years — even the four decades that separate the original “Planet of the Apes” from the brand-new “Rise” — are just a tick of the clock in evolutionary terms. The beauty of Boulle’s amusing idea, and of the best science-fiction ideas in general, is that it encourages us to take a longer view than we’re accustomed to; maybe longer than we’re entirely comfortable with. If “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” gives its audience that sort of perspective, it will have been worth the wait. But in that case we’ll want the sequel right away.</p><div><br /></div><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></nyt_text></span>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-19229105189554195152011-07-05T23:18:00.001-07:002011-07-05T23:18:42.380-07:001981<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxf7heYLQ87p25wEbfFFqxdYmhqLdj7vkFrlW7DN2imcGaf3NcrYTK4yMb9FUtXsAO92grkQc5rtsZ3HjkBugDlC24d2N9hJf5OylKELP61cHRwOQZ7JcFn4X_lR5yczSJsKO4FqrupYM/s1600/photo-722381.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxf7heYLQ87p25wEbfFFqxdYmhqLdj7vkFrlW7DN2imcGaf3NcrYTK4yMb9FUtXsAO92grkQc5rtsZ3HjkBugDlC24d2N9hJf5OylKELP61cHRwOQZ7JcFn4X_lR5yczSJsKO4FqrupYM/s320/photo-722381.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626119919287850658" /></a></p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-14608301552509498172011-01-20T21:59:00.000-08:002011-01-20T22:01:55.468-08:00McDonalds Prep Academy (or Financing Social Benefits Through Modern Advertising)<div class="timestamp">January 20, 2011</div> <h1>The Pulse: Name that School, Trim That Deficit</h1> <h6 class="byline">By LORRAINE FORTE (CATALYST CHICAGO)</h6> <div id="articleBody"> <p> With Chicago’s financially ailing public school system struggling to improve academic performance at its 675 public schools, education has emerged as a central issue in the municipal election. </p> <p> A questionnaire sent to the six mayoral candidates asked, “What would success with your education agenda look like at the end of your first term?” The responses were mostly campaign boilerplate — fewer dropouts, higher test scores, more college-bound graduates and better classroom technology. </p> <p> But one candidate, William Walls III, proposed addressing the schools’ financial woes with an unusual idea that has been tried elsewhere: selling naming rights for schools to corporations. </p> <p> Mr. Walls, a community activist, suggested that the city’s largest public high school, 4,200-student Lane Tech, might be rechristened the Sprint-Lane Tech Campus, in exchange for a $1.6 million initial investment and $600,000 a year from a business like Sprint, the communications company. He also suggested that that companies and individuals might pay a fee to have their names on certain classrooms. </p> <p> Public school officials in the past have floated the idea of having corporations finance the renovation of field houses and gyms in exchange for naming rights, but not entire schools or classrooms. </p> <p> A schools spokeswoman said renaming school properties “is a consideration for the next administration.” </p> <p> The questionnaire survey was conducted by the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/illinois/chicago-news-cooperative/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Chicago News Cooperative" class="meta-org">Chicago News Cooperative</a> and its media partners WBEZ/Chicago Public Media, WTTW-Channel 11 and Catalyst Chicago, a nonprofit publication focusing on Chicago public schools. </p> <div class="articleCorrection"> </div> </div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-88016917101814822812010-12-08T17:03:00.000-08:002010-12-08T17:07:11.934-08:00The Starbucks of Dry Cleaning... Tide.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font: normal normal normal 83.5%/normal Georgia, serif; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; padding-top: 13px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 118px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 62.5%; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><div class="header" style="float: left; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; width: 1187px; "><div class="left" style="float: left; width: 500px; "><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; "></a></div></div><div class="timestamp" style="margin-top: 15px; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal !important; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(168, 24, 23); ">December 8, 2010</div><div class="kicker" style="font-weight: normal; color: black; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 15px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.4em; "></div><h1 style="font-size: 2.4em; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.083em; "><nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" ">Smelling an Opportunity</nyt_headline></h1><nyt_byline><h6 class="byline" style="margin-top: 2px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; ">By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/andrew_martin/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Andrew Martin" class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">ANDREW MARTIN</a></h6></nyt_byline><nyt_text><div id="articleBody"><nyt_correction_top></nyt_correction_top><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">MASON, Ohio — For more than a decade, some of the nation’s shrewdest marketers have tried to muscle in on the neighborhood dry cleaner, only to give up after years of labor and millions of dollars in investments.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Undeterred, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/procter_and_gamble/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Procter & Gamble Co" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Procter & Gamble</a> is taking a shot at it, again. Having persuaded Americans to buy synthetic laundry detergent, fluorinated toothpaste and disposable diapers, P.& G. believes it has finally cracked the code on the dry cleaning business, too.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Where other dry cleaning entrepreneurs have tried to come up with clever business models for dry cleaning, P.& G.’s primary innovation is in the brand name itself:<a href="http://www.tidedrycleaners.com/WebPages/Home.aspx" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Tide Dry Cleaners</a>, named after its best-selling laundry detergent.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">With more than 800,000 <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Facebook." class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Facebook</a> fans and legions of loyal customers, Tide will draw people into the franchise stores, and superior service — which includes drive-through service, 24-hour pickup and environmentally benign cleaning methods — will keep them coming back, company officials predict.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“The power of our brands represents disruptive innovation in these industries,” said Nathan Estruth, vice president for <a href="https://www.pgconnectdevelop.com/pg-connection-portal/ctx/noauth/0_0_1_4_83_4_10.do" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">FutureWorks</a>, P.& G.’s entrepreneurial arm. “Imagine getting to start my new business with the power of Tide.”</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">And the lure of its fragrance. P.& G. plans to infuse the stores and its dry cleaning fluids with the scent of the brand that’s been cozily familiar to generations of households.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Among the Tide believers is Rick DeAngelis, a 40-year-old who is planning to open a franchise in suburban Cincinnati next year.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“It’s been a trusted name in laundry for 60 years,” he said. “It’s almost synonymous with laundry.”</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Already, some local dry cleaners are complaining about the new gorilla on the block, backed by a corporation with roughly $80 billion in annual net sales.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Robert Tran, who owns <a href="http://www.monroedrycleaning.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Monroe Dry Cleaning</a> here in Mason, said his business was off more than 50 percent since a new Tide store opened down the street at the end of October. Customers are being drawn to the Tide store by discounts and giveaways, like P.& G. products and gift cards, he said.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“There is no way I can afford that,” he said. “All my customers just left without giving me a chance to say, ‘Hey, check the quality.’ ”</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">But for Tide to become synonymous with dry cleaning too, P.& G. will have to overcome problems that have undone other upstarts. The dry cleaning industry has been roiled by unemployment and economic woes, and hurt by a continuing trend toward more casual work clothes.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Competition is fierce, and customers can be prickly: woe to the dry cleaner that ruins a favorite dress, even if it was cheaply made and bought decades ago.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Sanjiv Mehra, who oversaw a short-lived effort by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/unilever-nv/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Unilever N.V" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Unilever</a> to break into the dry cleaning business about a decade ago, said the key to success was figuring out a way to do it cheaper or significantly better than the mom-and-pop stores that dominate the industry. At the end of the day, Unilever decided that it couldn’t do either.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“It comes back to, are you fundamentally changing the economics of the business?” he said, adding that P.& G.’s marketing muscle could be the difference. “That’s where they will make a lot of money if they do this right.”</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Payam Zamani, co-founder of <a target="_" href="http://Autoweb.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Autoweb.com</a>, a site for car buyers, who later founded PurpleTie dry cleaners, said he tried to do for dry cleaning what <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/blockbuster_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Blockbuster Inc." class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Blockbuster</a> did for video stores, offering efficient and better quality than neighborhood dry cleaners. He said it was hard for his stores to compete with owner-operated stores with little overhead and low-wage employees.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“People were more interested in cheaper service, not better service,” Mr. Zamani said.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">P.& G. has dabbled in dry cleaning before. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/09/business/personal-business-dry-cleaning-should-you-try-this-at-home.html?scp=1&sq=marin%20dryel&st=cse" title="Article from the archive." style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">In the late 1990s it introduced Dryel</a>, an at-home dry cleaning product that rattled local dry cleaners, who feared they would lose business. But Dryel was considered a disappointment, and P.& G. sold it in 2008.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">In 2000, it opened several stores in suburban Atlanta, called Juvian, that offered at-home pickup and delivery of laundry and dry cleaning. The stores were eventually closed.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">The idea for Tide Dry Cleaners came from P.& G.’s FutureWorks, a unit that comes up with ways to expand famous brands like Pampers, Oil of Olay and Crest.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Many of those brands are experiencing robust growth in developing markets, but finding new ways to increase revenue in saturated markets like the United States is more challenging.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Four years ago, FutureWorks began considering franchise opportunities, looking for industries where ownership was fragmented and consumers weren’t satisfied. It came up with a three-inch binder of ideas.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">The first one to get a green light? Car washes festooned with Mr. Clean, P.& G.’s popular cleaning product. There are now 16 <a href="http://www.mrcleancarwash.com/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Mr. Clean Car Washes</a>, including one here in Mason that includes Wi-Fi, televisions and spray guns that children can aim at cars passing through the wash. Of course, Mr. Clean products are for sale too.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Dry cleaning, a roughly $8 billion-a-year industry, was second. Research showed that consumers thought the quality of dry cleaners was inconsistent, hours were inconvenient and prices rarely displayed. Plus, many dry cleaner stores were dingy, stifling hot and smelled of chemicals, not unlike a sweatshop, officials said.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Mr. Estruth said his team studied the failed efforts of others as it devised a business plan for Tide Dry Cleaners. The early results are promising: a pilot store in Kansas, outside Kansas City, generated more than $1 million in annual sales, roughly four times the industry average. There are now four Tide Dry Cleaners outlets with plans to expand in a dozen or so more markets.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“If we don’t have compelling unit-level economics, it doesn’t matter how strong the brand is,” said William M. Van Epps, a former <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/papa-johns-international-inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Papa John's International Inc" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Papa John’s Pizza</a> executive who was hired to run P.& G.’s franchises. In a tour of a newly opened store in Mason, P.& G. officials explained why they believed they had resolved the dry cleaning issues that make consumers so unhappy.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">At 3,000 square feet, the store is larger than most dry cleaners, and it is painted in Tide’s distinctive orange hue. Cleaning is done on the premises, with Tide being used on garments that are laundered. Silicon-based detergents are used to dry-clean garments, though Tide’s fragrance is added in the process.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Huge vents suck out heat and odors, keeping the store cool and smelling like — what else? — Tide.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">The store is staffed with 15 to 18 employees, wearing Tide golf shirts. Lockers near the entrance allow customers to pick up and drop off clothes around the clock. Prices are displayed above the counter (a laundered shirt is $2.25; a dry-cleaned suit is $13, about average in the industry).</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">During a recent weekday, a steady stream of customers seemed willing to give the Tide store a try. In a positive omen for P.& G., several swooned over Tide.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“It smelled really good in there,” said Harlan Smith, 42, who was on a business trip and dropped off some pants. “When I think of Tide, I have so many good feelings. I’m surprised they didn’t think of it sooner.”</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Elena Hickman, 69, said she was lured to the store by a coupon.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“I wanted to see how and why they are doing it and compare it to my local store, which I have been visiting for 10, 11 years,” she said. “I like the drive-in and I like the service. It’s very convenient if it’s raining. The girls were very friendly. And I like the coupons, to be honest.”</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; "><a href="http://www.hcp.com/todd_krasnow" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Todd Krasnow</a>, a former <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/staples_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Staples Inc" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); text-decoration: none; ">Staples</a> executive, remembers the heady days when he opened his own dry cleaning chain in 1998. Called Zoots, it offered 24-hour pickup, drive-through service and environmentally friendly detergents, and it eventually grew to 70 stores.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">But, as the economy soured, so did demand for dry cleaning, putting downward pressure on prices, he said. Consumers would take their business elsewhere or demand a refund if something was damaged, even if Zoots wasn’t to blame.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“We underestimated what made it a truly challenging business,” Mr. Krasnow said. “Even if you did a really good job, there are plenty of problems.” Zoots was eventually sold in 2008.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Mr. Krasnow, now a venture capitalist, said he still got a few calls a month from investors or recent business school graduates who believed they had found a way to make a killing in dry cleaning. He wishes them luck.</p><p style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">“People think it is easier to do it better,” he said. “And it’s very, very difficult.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px; line-height: normal; text-transform: uppercase;"><b>"</b></span></span></p></div></nyt_text></div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-60115816342819964142010-12-02T17:31:00.000-08:002010-12-02T17:32:31.734-08:00Intimate Friends<span class="timestamp published" title="2010-11-25T20:00:56+00:00"> <span class="date"></span></span>The Bedfellows’ Reunion <address class="byline author vcard">By <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/adam-goodheart/" class="url fn" title="See all posts by ADAM GOODHEART">ADAM GOODHEART</a> <span class="timestamp published" title="2010-11-25T20:00:56+00:00"><span class="date">November 25, 2010<em></em></span></span> <br /><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/">Disunion</a> follows the Civil War as it unfolded.</address> <p> </p> <p><strong>Chicago, Nov. 26, 1860</strong></p> <p>When the president-elect left Chicago at the end of his six-day political visit, he was also leaving behind an old friend – indeed, a longtime bedmate. In his late 20s and early 30s, Abraham Lincoln had been emotionally closer to Joshua Speed than to anyone else he ever knew, probably including his wife. As young bachelors in Springfield, Ill., they shared a bed for four years; the president and first lady, on the other hand, would keep separate bedrooms in the White House.</p> <div class="w190 right"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/11/24/opinion/disunion_goodheart_nov26_speed/disunion_goodheart_nov26_speed-articleInline.jpg" id="100000000449319" alt="Joshua Speed as a young man." width="190" height="226" /><span class="credit"><br />Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Ky.</span> <span class="caption">Joshua Speed as a young man.</span></div> <p>“No two men were ever more intimate,” Speed would recall. Lincoln himself <a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=simple;rgn=div1;q1=you%20is%20everlasting;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln1;node=lincoln1:292;start=1;size=25;hi=0">wrote to Speed in 1842</a>: “You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting – that I will never cease, while I know how to do any thing.”</p> <p>Yet the pair had quickly drifted apart after each man married. By 1860, they probably had not seen each other in well over a decade, and even their letters had grown infrequent. Speed had moved to Kentucky and become a slaveholder. Lincoln wrote that a “philosophical cause” – probably involving their differences over slavery – had caused their friendship to “die by degrees.”<span id="more-71165"></span></p> <p>Then, a week after Lincoln’s election to the presidency, Speed wrote to congratulate him on attaining “the highest position in the world” – and, although confessing himself “a political opponent,” offered to share information on the climate in his crucial border slave state. (As if atoning for their years of separation, he signed the letter, “I am as ever your friend, J.F. Speed.”) Lincoln <a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln4;node=lincoln4%3A212">almost immediately invited</a> Speed and his wife to meet him and Mary in Chicago the following week. Lincoln was eager to take the political temperature of Kentucky; Speed was a slaveholder – and a Democrat – he could trust. But no doubt he was also moved by Speed’s gesture of friendship, and eager to see his old companion at that moment of personal triumph and national crisis.</p> <div class="w427"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/11/24/opinion/disunion_goodheart_nov26_tremont/disunion_goodheart_nov26_tremont-blog427.jpg" id="100000000449318" alt="Chicago’s Tremont House hotel, scene of the 1860 rendezvous." width="427" height="273" /><span class="credit">Library of Congress</span><span class="caption">Chicago’s Tremont House hotel, scene of the 1860 rendezvous.</span></div> <p>Speed and his wife, Fanny, arrived at the Tremont House hotel to find Lincoln worn and exhausted, his suite besieged by admirers and office-seekers. But the president-elect perked up at the sight of his friend. “Speed, have you got a room?” Lincoln asked. “Name the hour, Speed, and I will come and see you, and will bring my wife.” But then he thought better of including the women. “Mary and Fanny can stay here,” he said. “Let’s you and I go to your room.”</p> <p>As soon as the two men were alone together, Lincoln seemed to resume their old intimacy, flopping down onto the bed. “Speed, what are your pecuniary conditions?” the president-elect asked. “Are you rich or poor?” Apparently he meant to offer the Kentuckian a post in his administration, perhaps as secretary of the treasury. </p> <p>Speed, grasping where the conversation was going, quickly headed Lincoln off: “I do not think you have any office within your gift that I can take.”</p> <div class="w151 right module"><div class="entry"> An unfolding history of the Civil War with photos and articles from the Times archive and ongoing commentary from Disunion contributors. </div> </div> <p>But their old friendship rekindled that day in Chicago. Throughout Lincoln’s presidency, Speed would serve as a valued adviser and operative; in the spring of 1861 he helped arm Kentucky’s Unionist forces. He visited the White House often. There is no evidence, however, that Lincoln and Speed ever again shared a bed. </p> <p>In the 19th century, the boundary between comradeship and sexuality – never a perfectly sharp one – was especially blurry. (Trivia question: which famous Civil War general wrote to a male friend: “I would that we might lie awake in each others arms for one long wakeful night”?) The true nature of Lincoln and Speed’s youthful relationship in Springfield will no doubt be debated for a long time to come. Certainly it is hard to imagine two people sleeping together for four years – especially two large men in a small 19th-century bed – without a great deal of physical intimacy. We do know that they were sexually frank with one another; Speed admitted that the two shared the favors of the same prostitute. (He introduced her to his friend after young Abe asked, “Speed, do you know where I can get some?”) But exactly what they did, or didn’t do, under the covers during more than a thousand nights together is probably unknowable. </p> <p>Even Speed admitted that there were parts of his friend’s inner self that remained a mystery to him. “Now for me to have lived to see such a man rise from point to point … until he reached the presidency, filling the presidential chair in the most trying times that any ruler ever had, seems to me more like fiction than fact,” he wrote after Lincoln’s death. “Mr. Lincoln was so unlike all the men I had ever known before or see or known since that there is no one to whom I can Compare him.”</p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-5961713543988523952010-11-21T11:41:00.001-08:002010-11-21T11:42:13.894-08:0075% Of 17-24 Year Olds Unable To Enlist!!!<div class="timestamp">November 20, 2010</div> <h1>Teaching for America</h1> <h6 class="byline">By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Thomas L. Friedman" class="meta-per">THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</a></h6> <div id="articleBody"> <p> When I came to Washington in 1988, the cold war was ending and the hot beat was national security and the State Department. If I were a cub reporter today, I’d still want to be covering the epicenter of national security — but that would be the Education Department. President Obama got this one exactly right when he said that whoever “out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow.” The bad news is that for years now we’ve been getting out-educated. The good news is that cities, states and the federal government are all fighting back. But have no illusions. We’re in a hole. </p> <p> Here are few data points that the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, offered in a Nov. 4 speech: “One-quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or fail to graduate on time. Almost one million students leave our schools for the streets each year. ... One of the more unusual and sobering press conferences I participated in last year was the release of a report by a group of top retired generals and admirals. Here was the stunning conclusion of their report: 75 percent of young Americans, between the ages of 17 to 24, are unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit.” America’s youth are now tied for ninth in the world in college attainment. </p> <p> “Other folks have passed us by, and we’re paying a huge price for that economically,” added Duncan in an interview. “Incremental change isn’t going to get us where we need to go. We’ve got to be much more ambitious. We’ve got to be disruptive. You can’t keep doing the same stuff and expect different results.” </p> <p> Duncan, with bipartisan support, has begun several initiatives to energize reform — particularly his Race to the Top competition with federal dollars going to states with the most innovative reforms to achieve the highest standards. Maybe his biggest push, though, is to raise the status of the teaching profession. Why? </p> <p> Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate. </p> <p> If you look at the countries leading the pack in the tests that measure these skills (like Finland and Denmark), one thing stands out: they insist that their teachers come from the top one-third of their college graduating classes. As Wagner put it, “They took teaching from an assembly-line job to a knowledge-worker’s job. They have invested massively in how they recruit, train and support teachers, to attract and retain the best.” </p> <p> Duncan disputes the notion that teachers’ unions will always resist such changes. He points to the new “breakthrough” contracts in Washington, D.C., New Haven and Hillsborough County, Fla., where teachers have embraced higher performance standards in return for higher pay for the best performers. </p> <p> “We have to reward excellence,” he said. “We’ve been scared in education to talk about excellence. We treated everyone like interchangeable widgets. Just throw a kid in a class and throw a teacher in a class.” This ignored the variation between teachers who were changing students’ lives, and those who were not. “If you’re doing a great job with students,” he said, “we can’t pay you enough.” </p> <p> That is why Duncan is starting a “national teacher campaign” to recruit new talent. “We have to systemically create the environment and the incentives where people want to come into the profession. Three countries that outperform us — Singapore, South Korea, Finland — don’t let anyone teach who doesn’t come from the top third of their graduating class. And in South Korea, they refer to their teachers as ‘nation builders.’ ” </p> <p> Duncan’s view is that challenging teachers to rise to new levels — by using student achievement data in calculating salaries, by increasing competition through innovation and charters — is not anti-teacher. It’s taking the profession much more seriously and elevating it to where it should be. There are 3.2 million active teachers in America today. In the next decade, half (the baby boomers) will retire. How we recruit, train, support, evaluate and compensate their successors “is going to shape public education for the next 30 years,” said Duncan. We have to get this right. </p> <p> Wagner thinks we should create a West Point for teachers: “We need a new National Education Academy, modeled after our military academies, to raise the status of the profession and to support the R.& D. that is essential for reinventing teaching, learning and assessment in the 21st century.” </p> <p> All good ideas, but if we want better teachers we also need better parents — parents who turn off the TV and video games, make sure homework is completed, encourage reading and elevate learning as <em>the</em> most important life skill. The more we demand from teachers the more we have to demand from students and parents. That’s the Contract for America that will truly ensure our national security. </p> <div class="articleCorrection"> </div> </div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-42809533626363658382010-11-18T07:22:00.000-08:002010-11-18T07:38:13.365-08:00Hadrian's Wall - To Separate Romans From Barbarians<div><div><br />At the time of Julius Caesar's first small invasion of the south coast of Britain in 55 BC, the British Isles, like much of mainland Europe was inhabited by many Celtic tribes loosely united by a similar language and culture but nevertheless each distinct. He returned the next year and encountered the 4000 war chariots of the Catevellauni in a land "protected by forests and marshes, and filled with a great number of men and cattle." He defeated the Catevellauni and then withdrew, though not before establishing treaties and alliances. Thus began the Roman occupation of Britain.<br />Nearly 100 years later, in 43 AD, the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius and about 24,000 soldiers to Britain, this time to establish control under a military presence. Although subjugation of southern Britain proceeded fairly smoothly by a combination of military might and clever diplomacy, and by 79 AD what is now England and Wales were firmly under control, the far North remained a problem. However, the Emperor Vespasian decided that what is now Scotland should also be incorporated into the Roman Empire. Under his instructions the governor of Britian, Julius Agricola, subdued the Southern Scottish tribal clans, the Selgovae, Novantae and Votadini by 81 AD. Further to the North lived loose associations of clans known collectively as the Caledonians. Agricola tried to provoke them into battle by marching an army into the Highlands eventually forcing a battle with the Caledonian leader Calgacus in present day Aberdeenshire at a place called Mons Graupius. 30,000 Caledonians were killed, but the Roman victory was a hollow one, for the next day the surviving clansmen melted away into the hills, and were to remain fiercely resistant and independent.<br />By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east <b>"to separate Romans from Barbarians"</b>. One of the greatest monuments to the power- and limitations - of the Roman Empire, Hadrian's Wall ran for 73 miles across open country. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1px; "><img src="http://www.uknetguide.co.uk/Travel/nt/maps/map_united_kingdom.gif" id="il_fi" height="330" width="475" style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px; -webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.648438) 2px 2px 8px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1px; "><img src="http://www.gavinrymill.com/hadrians-wall-romans/hadrians-wall-map-path.gif" id="il_fi" height="288" width="293" style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px; -webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.648438) 2px 2px 8px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; " /></span></div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-82129445978292832902010-11-04T05:25:00.000-07:002011-07-05T23:45:27.638-07:00Paleo<p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">this lover culls the darkness</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">she hoists my heart up with it</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">severs every head i grew her</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">reanimates the bones i threw her</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">this lover calms the darkness</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">-This Lover April 19, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">we are careless with our wishing</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">with the truths we tell through teeth</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">you'd be careful what you pay for</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">when the soul is your receipt</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">-In The Morning Linda Dies April 29, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">it was a night just like tonight</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">a dark & stormy night</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">oh, and my mouth was a machine gun</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">shooting stars into your eyes. </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">when it rained - my god, it was porn.</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">when i was strong enough to hold you</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">you were lost enough to follow my lead</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">oh, i was lost enough to look </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">for someone lost enough to follow my lead</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">oh, when i was really out in orbit</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">you were lost enough to follow my lead</p><p></p><p></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">-Something Else May 5, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">count on the world </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">to count backwards from ten</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">close your eyes </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">lean your mind on the wall</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">every brain </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">is the stuff of a big ticking bomb</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">every heart </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">knows its clarion call</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">who let the world let you down? </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">who let the world let you down, little girl</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">it was you who let the world let you down</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">-Let The World Let You Down May 13, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">i wonder if it's true </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">if we'll inherit the earth</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">or was that rap a tasteless joke </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">a bit like sex in a hearse</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">you know they say that when we die </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">our life it plays in reverse</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">it's just one of those things </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">that we don't want to think about</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">-Ultraviolet May 15, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">when love gets quiet</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">you turn it up a notch</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">when love runs slowly</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">time to wind the watch</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">cuz love gets quiet</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">-Love Gets Quiet May 20, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">when i get to the top</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">i'll stop. </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">i'll throw a rope</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">made up of keepsakes </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">made of moonbreak </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">made of hope.</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">i am fixing to die young </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">or die trying.</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">trying.</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">-Die Young Or Die Trying May 22, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">dry your eyes</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">for when i fill your cups with life</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">though they are bound to spill at times</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">i build to last. i build to last.</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">such well-laid plans</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">even in sickness, still in health</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">these bloody stumps of hands i'm dealt</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">will play their parts, and play them well. </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';">-To Last June 12, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: 11px 'Courier New';"></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">i'm starting to believe </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">these are the best years of my life</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">so i'm living them just one day at a time</p><p class="p4" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">deck the halls with photos </p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">from the best years of our lives</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">close your eyes they will be shot one at a time</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;">-The Best Years Of My Life June 14, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin: 0px; font: medium Times;"></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">ever wonder what you would have been like </p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">if you were born in a far away place?</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">in the dark, like the sun, </p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">she has her moments</p><p class="p4" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">do you believe that when we leave this life</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">there remains some indelible trace?</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">in the dark, like the sun, </p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">we had a moment</p><p class="p4" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">she said the two of us were fishes in a river</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">coming up to take a breath of the light</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">we traded notes on the loves of our lives</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">and the ghosts that they became for us at night</p><p class="p4" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i wanna know what you were like as a child</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">were you shy as the devil in love?</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">in the dark, like the sun, </p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">she has her moments</p><p class="p4" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">we wondered if a sort of god exists</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">being together made us sure he surely does</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">in the dark, like the sun, </p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">we had a moment</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-A Moment July 5, 2006</p><p></p><p class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"></span></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">what's mine is yours is ours always</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i am looking forward </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to looking back </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">on us</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i know i'm easier said than done</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but i am looking forward </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to looking back </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">on us</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i knows we've all lost some things</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">on steps dejected clutching rings</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i am looking forward </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to looking back </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">on us</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-On Looking Forward July 1, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">hope is a paper boat</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">get in & let's go</p><p class="p4" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">say that you'll follow me anywhere. let's go</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">say that you'll come with me everywhere & let's go</p><p class="p4" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i was once a little boy in a little world</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-The Rabbitfoot Tree July 12, 2006</p><p class="p3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Courier New';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">it's not perfect</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">nothing's perfect</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but it works</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">when money talks </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">what does it say to you?</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">when money talks </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">what does it mean </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">when money talks?</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">what does it </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">say to you </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">say to you</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i will take all your blues away</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i could take all your blues away</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-When Money Talks August 4, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth does not wear a watch</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth always drags his or her feet</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth always arrives late, but always arrives, and arrives well-dressed</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth isn't here yet</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth prefers we get seperate checks</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth would throw its coat under me</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth speaks three languages fluently</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth spends the whole car ride on the phone</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the truth always says the perfect thing at the wrong time</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">don't call on those who won't be called on</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">don't call on those who won't be called</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">do not trust someone to catch you</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">if that someone's known to never fall</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">if that someone's known to never fall</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-The Truth About Timing November 25, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Courier New';font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:11px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to hell with your organs. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">bury me with my machines</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">see for yourself </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i see only what i wish to see</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my formidable. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my formidable foe</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">oh, all your light in my eyes. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">there is no bigger soul i know</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">true </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i have known </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">no nervous truth </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to pierce my tongue</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but i swear by the rain </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">in her hair </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she could be the one</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">lying in our bed </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she goes over my head sometimes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">her hair makes a kind of cathedral </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">between our eyes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my face is the floor </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">under her stained glass skylight</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">rise when i call to you. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">smoke to the top of the sky</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">lying in our bed </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she is two grades ahead of me in school</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she says she wants to be held back. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she wants to. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she is no fool</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the first to the front lines of life </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">they are the first to die</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">their faith </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like the faith of the moth </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">in a smock of fire</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the slow and steady sun will surely rise </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and we may open up our eyes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but we can sleep a little longer. it's alright</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">it hurts when i walk </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">these shoes they gnaw at my heels</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like it hurts when i see you </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i thought that we had a deal</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">coke rots my teeth </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and my eyes are leaves of grass</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">still life is the hardest drug. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">it just lasts to the last</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">lying in our bed</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">how we make and we unmake friends</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we are talking a storm </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like the fate of the world depends</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">shame on your pride. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the pictures here hang like scabs</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">shame on your shame. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">this dream that i dream went bad</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the slow and steady sun will surely rise </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and you may open up our eyes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but you can sleep a little longer. it's alright</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">bird what do you say</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">this is the story of our lives</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">how we get eachother through</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">how we get eachother through the night</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-Three Stops To The Big Dream I Dream November 30, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">once you let loose</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">things you love</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">they will not return to you</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">that is, not without a fight</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i'm all that i have</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i say that a lot</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">and though my brain is full of plans</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i can't see the future for the past</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">but give me one more chance</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-Forest For The Past/Future For The Trees December 7, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">you and me like wisdom teeth</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">coming in sideways</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like two things living underneath a sink</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we don't see light nor day</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i have seen their light with my own two eyes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i close them just in time</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">nations behave like fighting words </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">denying that they rhyme with an illegal</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-Love With An Illegal December 23, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">love is my favorite movie</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i have never seen the ending</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">love is my favorite ending</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">love is my favorite country</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">you don't respect my boundaries</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">you don't respect my boundaries</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">love is my favorite boundary</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">plant your flag and found me</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">love is my favorite color</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-Favorites December 27, 2006</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">bedrooms </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">with no beds in them. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i'm learning peer to peer</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my dears </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">if you become my eyes and ears </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">then i will be your mirror</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the wall is fake brick. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">fake wood. fake a marble smile</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">what will it take </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to fake it til you make it </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">mile for twisted mile</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she doesn't hear a word i say </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">she's all but staring at my mouth</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the teeth go up down </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">up down </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">trapping vowel sounds</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">ahead the skyline </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like an ash black mangled claw </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">paws at the sky</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and like i lived </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i'll never die. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my songs will walk your street at night</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i am one thousand ghosts. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">a thousand haunts. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i have fricasseed my soul</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">into a list of things i want </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and things i have </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and things i don't</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and all the people that have crossed me </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">cross my heart and hope to die</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">all of our hands reach out </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">for hands </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">all of our eyes look out for eyes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we set the table. clear the plate. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">a little help from jenna's pets</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">our mother nature hits the fan, </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my peacoat pockets lined with debt</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">our generation may hit the bottle hard </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but at least we know that wealth</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">is catching colds </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and having someone there </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to nurse you back to health</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">will it be carie </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">who i buried </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">in the evergreen northwest?</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">or has she once and for all </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">sworn off being my lucky safety net</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">all of creation is in question </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">all her trust in me in doubt</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i have gone over this </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and over this </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">still i can't figure it out</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">not here </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">on the roadworthy warpath </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">from here to misery</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">missouri waits for me in shadows </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">cast from frozen ozarks trees</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">babe i am sorry i give you freely </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">what you'd rather have to steal</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and i am sorry too for choosing you </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">without a chance to heal</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but i'm a good kind of distraction </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">you've become my master plan</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">even the sea changes its mind </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">how can i make you understand</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">if i had something to fall back on</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">if i had something to fall back on</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i'd fall back</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i'd fall back</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i'd fall back</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-Something To Fall Back On January 12, 2007</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">you are a pretty good investment</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">think i'll keep you around</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i'm not going nowhere</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">nail your gown to the ground</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">you are two sips of biker's coffee</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">take my heart to the pound</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">you can save me from a rainy day</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">save me from a rainy day</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">you are a pretty good investment</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">think i'll keep you around</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">save me from a rainy day</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-Love Interest January 22, 2007</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">snake eyes roll from town to town </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like marbles on a map </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we humble creature know no comfort. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">judas chair for luxury's lap</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we simply take the wheel of fortune </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and we strip its lucky brakes</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and go careening down the mountain </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">through the wind tunnel of fate</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we have grass stains on our eyes </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">from all of the world we have to see</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">in cities like some fool's crush </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we love and then we leave</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i am one wall. you are two walls. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we are three walls. a house</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i am one wall. you are two walls. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we are three walls. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">a house</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my antique spirit is my living room. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my heart my leather couch</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i strike the tambourine against my hip </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and hit the road again</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the folks who take the bravest risks </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i bet they never had an accident</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">you set a course for the world's end, </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">you will find the end is endless</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">as the darkness </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and the ocean </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and the panic in titanic</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">when it sinks in</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">that forever is a very long time</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">so i will skip these hopping trains </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and face the body of my fears</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">ring a bell around my neck </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to have your jingle heart be near</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i could lay inside your love for me </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like a tiny raft in a tiny stream</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">untie my name and be known only </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">as the ellis island you see in me</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we'd flee to little egypt. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">grow a garden by the lake</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">you lynch tomatoes. i kill the chickens. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we knew all of them by name.</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">plant a sunset, watch a tree, </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i hold her hand when it gets dark</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the purple sun is just another star. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">the earth another yard </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and then it sinks in</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">that forever is a very long time</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">think i will take up quitting drinking </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">take the bottles out the fridge</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">out of the cupboard and the chimney </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">strange and stranger places hid</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i will collect them into bags. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">collect the bags into a can</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">that i will place beside the house </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">where garbage meets the garbage man</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">look at them all in there. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">their different shapes. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">their different colors</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like a sack of severed heads </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">of new and old and older lovers</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">it is too soon to say goodbyes. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i miss their hands in my insides</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and the way their gentle fingernails </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">would scratch the back of my mind</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i won't take you to the street tonight. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i will have you one more time</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like silver fillings to a cavity. </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i am yours and you are mine.</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">we let it sink in</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">how forever is a very long time</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">forever is a very long time</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-Forever Is A Very Long Time January 31, 2007</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">got a killer view from the mountain</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">of the path i should've walked all along</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">on the day i disappeared for the thin airs</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">i told my lady i would not be gone long</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">mom will find a job with the grocer</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">pop will clean the houses of friends</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">if the shoe don't want to fit you must force it</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">mister clock has got a gun to our head</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">where there is a will, there's a highway</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">a hammer must be tougher than nails</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">love you give me nothing but trouble</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">hope you give me nothing but hope</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">faith you give me things that are too big</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">too much mountain and not near enough rope</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-Mom And Pop March 2, 2007</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i had a dream i was a mountain</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and they turned my guts to guns</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">my wisdom teeth to wedding rocks</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and concrete claimed my sons</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">when i woke snow drifted in my hair</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and dirt on two of my feet</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">suppose somewhere there is a mountain</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">dreaming dreams that it is me</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i had a dream i was a rich man</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">scouting for a trophy wife</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to make a living off my death</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">once i had spent away my life</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i woke up with contracts in my mouth</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and checks bounced on my knee</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">somewhere there is a rich man</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">dreaming dreams that he is me</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i had a dream i was a window</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">but i may as well been blind</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to see the same things every day</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">when i come home late at night</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">some hope leftover in the fridge</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">i kick off my heart and soul</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and hang my dream up on the door</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">like it was just another goal</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">words carry words across the page </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">to clearings in your minds</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">might as well read the ending first</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">and save yourself some time</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">behind the mirror, another mirror</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">behind the scenes another scene</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">suppose somewhere a window </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">dreams a dream that it is me</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; ">-Somewhere There Is A Mountain March 29, 2007</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">when did all of this get so heavy</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">drained my lake to make a well for one wish</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">with every bone in my heart just shattered</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">life is a fight you don't win</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">not a day goes by</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">world turns all the way around</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">deep down somehow</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">not a day goes by</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">soon i turn my back on my family</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">soon i turn my back on my friends</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">but you miss the things you wouldn't think matter</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">the math you have to learn over again</p><p class="p2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; min-height: 12px; "><br /></p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">not a day goes by</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">not a day goes by</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">not a day goes by</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">that i don't think </p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">of what it would have been like</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">if i had never left your side</p><p class="p1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Courier New'; ">-A Day Goes By April 6, 2007</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-65965984795639703232010-10-30T14:30:00.000-07:002010-11-04T08:48:57.153-07:00Politics Is Like Traffic Merging...<p>“What exactly was this?” Mr. Stewart asks. “This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”</p><p>“The press is our immune system,” Mr. Stewart says. “If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker. And perhaps eczema. And yet, with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good.”</p> <p>In the news media, Mr. Stewart says, we hear of the fragility of our country, how we’re on the brink of catastrophe, how it’s a shame we can’t work together. “The truth is,” he says, “we do.”</p> <p> Mr. Stewart invokes the metaphor of a traffic merger at the Lincoln Tunnel, “You go, then I’ll go.” “Sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute. But that individual is rare and he is scorned, and he is not hired as an analyst.”</p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-64683488856369703062010-10-28T10:49:00.000-07:002010-10-28T10:50:45.409-07:00What Tax Cut!?!?<div class="timestamp">October 18, 2010</div> <h1>From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of</h1> <h6 class="byline">By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/michael_cooper/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Michael Cooper" class="meta-per">MICHAEL COOPER</a></h6> <p> HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed? </p> <p> It is not a rhetorical question. At Pig Pickin’ and Politickin’, a barbecue-fed rally organized here last week by a Republican women’s club, a half-dozen guests were asked by a reporter what had happened to their taxes since <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Barack Obama." class="meta-per">President Obama</a> took office. </p> <p> “Federal and state have both gone up,” said Bob Paratore, 59, from nearby Charlotte, echoing the comments of others. </p> <p> After further prodding — including a reminder that a provision of the stimulus bill had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families by changing withholding rates — Mr. Paratore’s memory was jogged. </p> <p> “You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you: it was so subtle that personally, I didn’t notice it.” </p> <p> Few people apparently did. </p> <p> In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed. </p> <p> In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.” </p> <p> Actually, the tax cut was, by design, hard to notice. Faced with evidence that people were more likely to save than spend the tax rebate checks they received during the Bush administration, the Obama administration decided to take a different tack: it arranged for less tax money to be withheld from people’s paychecks. </p> <p> They reasoned that people would be more likely to spend a small, recurring extra bit of money that they might not even notice, and that the quicker the money was spent, the faster it would cycle through the economy. </p> <p> Economists are still measuring how stimulative the tax cut was. But the hard-to-notice part has succeeded wildly. In a recent interview, President Obama said that structuring the tax cuts so that a little more money showed up regularly in people’s paychecks “was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut.” </p> <p> “And in fact what ended up happening was six months into it, or nine months into it,” the president said, “people had thought we had raised their taxes instead of cutting their taxes.” </p> <p> There are plenty of explanations as to why many taxpayers did not feel richer when the cuts kicked in, giving typical families an extra $65 a month. Some people were making less money to begin with, as businesses cut back. Others saw their take-home pay shrink as the amounts deducted for <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/insurance/health-insurance/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about health insurance." class="meta-classifier">health insurance</a> rose. </p> <p> And taxpayers in more than 30 states saw their state taxes rise, according to the <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/" title="The center’s Web site.">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a>. </p> <p> That is what happened here in North Carolina. The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/treasury_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the U.S. Treasury Department." class="meta-org">Treasury Department</a> estimated that the federal tax cut would put $1.7 billion back in the hands of North Carolina taxpayers this year. Last year, though, North Carolina, facing a large budget shortfall, raised a variety of state taxes by roughly a billion dollars. </p> “It was a wash,” said Mr. Tillis, the state representative.Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-83106081920132053912010-10-21T06:09:00.000-07:002010-10-21T06:40:45.672-07:0065 Years... What A Journey!<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.14174074144102633" style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">Background</span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">: It is the 65th Wedding Anniversary for Harold and Ann! </span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">However, </span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">due to the war, Harold and Ann never had a proper wedding ceremony. So today, they stand below the Huppa, their daughters have made. The Huppa includes a cloth that was the last piece of property Ann was able to smuggle </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">from her mother’s home before being escorted out of Poland by Russian soldiers.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><br /></span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">The Toast</span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">: My name is Marc and for those of you who don’t know me, I am the Brenners son in law. Actually, to </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">be precise, I am their 2nd favorite son in law, but any time I can finish in the top 2, I’m happy.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">I would like to compliment the Rabbi on conducting a beautiful ceremony, even though he forgot to mention that the newlyweds should </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">“be fruitful and multiply.”</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">I’ve been privileged to have known the Brenners for over 46 yrs, way back when I was a pesky teenager. And after all these </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">years of dating, I think it’s nice that Harold And Ann finally decided to get married. Now that Esther is finally legal, I might even consider running for public office.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">The courtship of Harold of Sulvalki and Ann of Zamocz started nearly 70 years ago with separate trips to the USSR. </span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><br /></span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">Ann actually won a free trip. One day she was walking outside and Russian soldiers approached and said, </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">“Mazel Tov, you won a free trip”. Then they gently guided her to the train with their rifles. Unlike today, the travel accommodations weren’t that great-- Ann’s trip from Poland to Russia was a several </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">week journey in a cattle car. There was a washroom close by, which was actually a hole in the floor. The doors of the train opened twice a day for bread and water. </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">As most of you know, Harold’s journey was 2000 miles on a </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">bicycle dodging German and Russian rockets.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">Fortune brought them together in Russia where they “hooked up.” Under brutal war conditions of the time it took a little bit of luck and a lot of </span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">resourcefulness just to survive one day to another. At that time the Soviet Constitution contained the following provision—“He who does not work, neither shall he eat”. Harold was always a well conditioned athlete + despite brutal winter</span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"> </span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">conditions along with </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">being driven to a forest on a sled, with inadequate shoes + makeshift gloves, he was always able to make his quota of cut timber. If fact, he probably made twice the quota. </span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">Ann’s job was in a lumber yard. The rule was that in order to get </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">bread you had to saw a certain number of boards. Now my mother in law is the world’s best soup maker, but not so good at sawing lumber. So if you ever need cut lumber I suggest you go to Home Depot rather than asking her.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><br /></span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">But fortune shined on Ann. One day while Standing in a bread line her appendix burst and she wound up in hospital in the Ukraine, with medical conditions less than ideal. Through out their lives, Ann and Harold have always had </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">the knack of easily making friendships because people like them. One such case was the wife of her treating doctor. They were a nice Tartar couple and the wife began to bring food to Ann in the hospital, where she convalesced for 3 </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">months. This kind lady wanted to protect Ann from hard labor, so she conspired with her husband to get Ann a job in a housing placement office. But there was a catch—no foreign languages were permitted </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">(you had to be an ethnic Russian). No problem, the Dr. + his Wife simply agreed to tutor Ann in Russian during her convalescence. </span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">It was in that job where she met Harold. There was one funny </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">incident—she could not speak Yiddish or Polish on the job so all the Jews from Poland and elsewhere feared Ann as a Russian taskmaster who might be spying on them. Sometimes she recognized </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">former neighbors but had to bite her tongue. Finally, one day she was alone in an apartment with a few of Polish Jews she recognized. from the old neighborhood. They spoke Yiddish thinking they were safe from the Russian monitor. </span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">When Ann responded in perfect Yiddish, there were almost 5 heart attacks. She finally confided her true identify and told them to relax.</span></span></span></b></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">When the War ended, the Breners were kind of like the 15</span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">th</span></span></span></b></span><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"> Century </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">explorers seeking to discover the new world. They had no maps, GPS, money or other resources. All they knew was that they had to go west. and get out of Russia by what ever means of transportation was a</span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">vailable. Travel was treacherous especially in Poland where even after the War vicious Pols were throwing Jews off the train. So Ann traveled with a large babushka over her head and posed as a Greek </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">refugee.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">Finally, thru luck and perseverance, they reached the American zone in Austria It must have been comfortable for at least one nite, because Esther </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">arrived shortly thereafter. 4 years later, with visas in hand they departed to America for a fresh start.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">Now Becky may assert that her parents were tough parents. That may or may not be true, but I say </span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">we have to look at the results. Esther is almost perfect-- just than one minor mishap in the selection of a spouse. Both she and Becky are wonderfully talented professionals.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">They are beautiful people who are loved by family and friends alike. So I’d say that the Brenners did a pretty good job raising their kids and as a result they now have 4 terrific grandsons and 2 wonderful great-grandsons.</span></span></span></b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"></span></span></span></b></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000099;">I am grateful for the opportunity to have played a small part in their great legacy.</span></span></span></b></span></div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnBXwxSjSf-J2KEAjnFK6Dt346B3ihk-uzDSKsh9plkBQB9hK2m3uUd5oXpZINKmTM4itAPgG1jJbZLtb9rPr-Pd8oOyDEDSDKd_3VbYPEZRzZHwnwPUgfgZlv156xC6JlboiEV6wj4jQ/s400/Ann+Harold.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530490643455214770" /><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background- font-family:Times;font-size:medium;color:transparent;"><span style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background- font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:11pt;color:transparent;"><br /></span></div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-63051558053855833582010-10-19T14:37:00.000-07:002010-10-21T06:36:05.071-07:00Would You Like Your Receipt?FEDERAL BUDGET | SEPTEMBER 2010<br />A Taxpayer Receipt By David Kendall and Jim Kessler<br /><br />Corn syrup, milk chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, coconut, almond, soy lecithin… any consumer can read these ingredients and their nutritional value on every package of a 75-cent Almond Joy.<br /><br />What is provided to a taxpayer with a $5,400 tax bill? Nothing. For many Americans, the amount they pay in taxes is larger than any purchase they make during the year, but studies show they know almost nothing about where that money goes to. This contributes to ridiculous beliefs, like the view that 20% of government spending goes to foreign aid, for example. An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention addressing a host of economic and social problems. We suggest that everyone who files a tax return receive a “taxpayer receipt.” This receipt would tell them to the penny what their taxes paid for based on the amount they paid in federal income taxes and FICA.THE PROBLEM<br />Taxpayers have no idea where their money goes.<br />The public is misinformed about where the federal government spends its money.<br />A 2005 Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation poll found that by a margin of two to one, Americans believe the federal government spent more on foreign aid than on either Social Security or Medicare.1 This is among many surveys that show that voters know little about where their money is spent.<br />This is not their fault. The budget process and documents put out by the IRS and government agencies are not consumer-friendly. At best, motivated taxpayers can locate a pie chart on a government website that gives percentage allocations about how large categories of spending are distributed. But these are difficult to find and difficult to understand. Just as very few Americans know what “soy lecithin” is in a list of ingredients, few could describe the significance of categories like “discretionary spending” without an explanation equivalent to nutrition labeling that personalizes abstract information.<br />An educated consumer is a progressive’s best customer.<br />With apologies to Syms clothing, progressives might have a better chance of winning greater funding levels for programs that invest in children, education, energy, environment, transportation, innovation, foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, and housing if taxpaying citizens had a better idea of how their money is spent. Most of these items represent a pittance of government spending as compared to other items in the budget.<br />At the same time, Americans might encourage Congress to be more fiscally responsible if they saw how much of their actual taxes went for things like interest on the national debt.<div><br />Taxpayers have a right to know.<br /><br /></div><div>According to the IRS website, in 2008 the median tax filer in America had an adjusted gross income of $34,140 and paid $2,790 in federal income taxes.2 Assuming that all of that income was earned through wages, this filer would also contribute $2,610 to Social Security and Medicare through FICA. That is a total of $5,400 in federal tax and FICA payments. For most people, that is an enormous sum of money—it certainly is for the median taxpayer.<br />Consumers can easily see detailed information on every product they buy, but the largest item that they purchase in a given year—their taxes—they get nothing. They have a right to know what they are paying for. Voters need to know the choices in the deficit debate.<br />Most voters believe the budget deficit can be solved without touching Social Security and Medicare.3 Instead, they believe that government waste is the source of the deficit. In fact, entitlement spending already consumes half of the federal budget and will rise to two-thirds of the budget by 2030. Elected officials cannot offer meaningful choices about changing revenue and spending unless voters appreciate where federal dollars currently go.<br />THE SOLUTION<br />We suggest providing each taxpayer with a receipt that shows them exactly how their money is spent to the penny. Taxpayers could either receive a receipt online (if they file electronically) or through the mail that breaks down their tax bill and provides them the exact contribution they made towards twenty to thirty budget items of interest.<br />Below is an example of what a receipt might look like for a typical taxpayer with a 2009 U.S. median income of $34,140, who paid $5,400 in federal income tax and FICA. It is very easy to generate and extremely informative to taxpayers.<br />What You Paid For 2009 tax receipt for a taxpayer earning $34,140 and paying $5,400 in federal income tax and FICA<br />Social Security $1,040.70<br />Medicare $625.51<br />Medicaid $385.28<br />Interest on the National Debt $287.03<br />Combat Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan $229.17<br />Military Personnel $192.79<br />Veteran’s Benefits $74.65<br />Federal Highways $63.89<br />Health care research (NIH) $46.54<br />Foreign Aid $46.08<br />Education Funding for Low Income K-12 Students $38.17<br />Military Retirement Benefits $32.60<br />Pell Grants for Low Income College Students $29.75<br />NASA Space Program $28.09<br />Internal Revenue Service $17.69<br />Environmental Clean Up (EPA) $11.67<br />The FBI $11.21<br />Head Start $10.91<br />Public Housing $10.50<br />National Parks $ 4.27<br />Drug Enforcement Agency $3.14<br />Amtrak $2.23<br />Smithsonian Museum $1.12<br />Funding for the Arts $0.24<br />Salaries and benefits for members of Congress $0.19<br /><br />September 2010 A Taxpayer Receipt<br />The Economic Program www.ThirdWay.org<br />CRITIQUES & RESPONSES<br />How is this done?<br />It’s really very easy. The total amount of federal spending is the denominator and the amount of money spent on a particular program is the numerator. The resulting quotient is the percentage of all federal spending that goes to that program. For example, the amount of money spent on Pell Grants in fiscal year 2009 was $19.38 billion, which is divided by total federal spending of $3.518 trillion.<br />This means that 0.55% of all federal spending went to Pell Grants. Multiply this number by the amount a taxpayer paid in taxes (in this case $5,400) and that means this person contributed $29.75 to Pell Grants.<br />Would this be hard and expensive for the federal government to do?<br />It shouldn’t be. The mathematical formula to do this is very simple. The Social<br />Security Administration does this every year through the mail to tell people what they can expect from Social Security in the future. This would be far easier. It could also be done online. An IRS website should be available so people could key in the amount they pay in taxes and a receipt pops up showing several dozen recognizable programs and the amount that went to each of them.<br />***<br />THE AUTHORS<br />David Kendall is Senior Fellow for Health and Fiscal Policy at Third Way and can be reached at dkendall@thirdway.org. Jim Kessler is the Vice President of Policy at Third Way and can be reached at jkessler@thirdway.org. Sean Mickens of Third Way provided research on this Idea Brief.<br />ABOUT THIRD WAY<br />Third Way is the leading think tank of the moderate wing of the progressive movement. We work with elected officials, candidates, and advocates to develop and advance the next generation of moderate policy ideas.<br />For more information about Third Way please visit www.thirdway.org.<br />September 2010 A Taxpayer Receipt - 5<br />The Economic Program www.ThirdWay.org<br /><br />ADDITIONAL RESOURCES<br />The idea for a taxpayer receipt has seen several iterations over the past<br />several years. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced the idea as a bill when he was a member of the House in 1997, “The Taxpayer Right-to-Know Act,” H.R. 2827.<br />The journal, Democracy has an insightful article on the idea, “Can’t Wait ‘Til Tax Day!” by Ethan Porter in it’s Spring, 2010 issue, available at: http://www.democracyjournal.org/</div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-17374628830029755352010-10-11T20:19:00.000-07:002010-10-11T20:30:06.214-07:00The Only Way Of Finding The Limits Of The Possible Is By Going Beyond Them Into The Impossible. - Arthur C. ClarkeGoogle Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic <h6 class="byline">By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_markoff/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by John Markoff" class="meta-per">JOHN MARKOFF </a>October 9, 2010<br /></h6>MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a <a href="http://autos.nytimes.com/2010/Toyota/Prius/286/3326/310054/researchOverview.aspx?inline=nyt-classifier" title="" class="meta-classifier">Toyota Prius</a> with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving. <p> The car is a project of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/google_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Google Inc" class="meta-org">Google</a>, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver. </p> <p> With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation.<strong> </strong>The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light. </p> <p> Autonomous cars are years from mass production, but technologists who have long dreamed of them believe that they can transform society as profoundly as the Internet has. </p> <p> Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than, say, today’s personal computers, which crash on occasion and are frequently infected. </p> <p> The Google research program using artificial intelligence to revolutionize the automobile is proof that the company’s ambitions reach beyond the search engine business. The program is also a departure from the mainstream of innovation in Silicon Valley, which has veered toward social networks and Hollywood-style digital media. </p> <p> During a half-hour drive beginning on Google’s campus 35 miles south of San Francisco last Wednesday, a Prius equipped with a variety of sensors and following a route programmed into the GPS navigation system nimbly accelerated in the entrance lane and merged into fast-moving traffic on Highway 101, the freeway through Silicon Valley. </p> <p> It drove at the speed limit, which it knew because the limit for every road is included in its database, and left the freeway several exits later. The device atop the car produced a detailed map of the environment. </p> <p> The car then drove in city traffic through Mountain View, stopping for lights and stop signs, as well as making announcements like “approaching a crosswalk” (to warn the human at the wheel) or “turn ahead” in a pleasant female voice. This same pleasant voice would, engineers said, alert the driver if a master control system detected anything amiss with the various sensors. </p> <p> The car can be programmed for different driving personalities — from cautious, in which it is more likely to yield to another car, to aggressive, where it is more likely to go first. </p> <p> Christopher Urmson, a <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/carnegie_mellon_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Carnegie Mellon University" class="meta-org">Carnegie Mellon University</a> robotics scientist, was behind the wheel but not using it. To gain control of the car he has to do one of three things: hit a red button near his right hand, touch the brake or turn the steering wheel. He did so twice, once when a bicyclist ran a red light and again when a car in front stopped and began to back into a parking space. But the car seemed likely to have prevented an accident itself. </p> <p> When he returned to automated “cruise” mode, the car gave a little “whir” meant to evoke going into warp drive on “Star Trek,” and Dr. Urmson was able to rest his hands by his sides or gesticulate when talking to a passenger in the back seat. He said the cars did attract attention, but people seem to think they are just the next generation of the Street View cars that Google uses to take photographs and collect data for its maps. </p> <p> The project is the brainchild of Sebastian Thrun, the 43-year-old director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a Google engineer and the co-inventor of the Street View mapping service. </p> <p> In 2005, he led a team of Stanford students and faculty members in designing the Stanley robot car, winning the second Grand Challenge of the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/defense_advanced_research_projects_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency." class="meta-org">Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency</a>, a $2 million Pentagon prize for driving autonomously over 132 miles in the desert. </p> <p> Besides the team of 15 engineers working on the current project, Google hired more than a dozen people, each with a spotless driving record, to sit in the driver’s seat, paying $15 an hour or more. Google is using six Priuses and an <a href="http://autos.nytimes.com/2010/Audi/TT/232/2588/313043/researchOverview.aspx?inline=nyt-classifier" title="" class="meta-classifier">Audi TT</a> in the project. </p> <p> The Google researchers said the company did not yet have a clear plan to create a business from the experiments. Dr. Thrun is known as a passionate promoter of the potential to use robotic vehicles to make highways safer and lower the nation’s energy costs. It is a commitment shared by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/larry_page/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Larry Page." class="meta-per">Larry Page</a>, Google’s co-founder, according to several people familiar with the project. </p> <p> The self-driving car initiative is an example of Google’s willingness to gamble on technology that may not pay off for years, Dr. Thrun said. Even the most optimistic predictions put the deployment of the technology more than eight years away. </p> <p> One way Google might be able to profit is to provide information and navigation services for makers of autonomous vehicles. Or, it might sell or give away the navigation technology itself, much as it offers its Android smart phone system to cellphone companies. </p> <p> But the advent of autonomous vehicles poses thorny legal issues, the Google researchers acknowledged. Under current law, a human must be in control of a car at all times, but what does that mean if the human is not really paying attention as the car crosses through, say, a school zone, figuring that the robot is driving more safely than he would? </p> <p> And in the event of an accident, who would be liable — the person behind the wheel or the maker of the software? </p> <p> “The technology is ahead of the law in many areas,” said Bernard Lu, senior staff counsel for the California Department of Motor Vehicles. “If you look at the vehicle code, there are dozens of laws pertaining to the driver of a vehicle, and they all presume to have a human being operating the vehicle.” </p> <p> The Google researchers said they had carefully examined California’s motor vehicle regulations and determined that because a human driver can override any error, the experimental cars are legal. Mr. Lu agreed. </p> <p> Scientists and engineers have been designing autonomous vehicles since the mid-1960s, but crucial innovation happened in 2004 when the Pentagon’s research arm began its Grand Challenge. </p> <p> The first contest ended in failure, but in 2005, Dr. Thrun’s Stanford team built the car that won a race with a rival vehicle built by a team from Carnegie Mellon University. Less than two years later, another event proved that autonomous vehicles could drive safely in urban settings. </p> <p> Advances have been so encouraging that Dr. Thrun sounds like an evangelist when he speaks of robot cars. There is their potential to reduce fuel consumption by eliminating heavy-footed stop-and-go drivers and, given the reduced possibility of accidents, to ultimately build more lightweight vehicles. </p> <p> There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land. </p> And, of course, the cars could save humans from themselves. “Can we text twice as much while driving, without the guilt?” Dr. Thrun said in a recent talk. “Yes, we can, if only cars will drive themselves.”<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQghf8ZvGvrXLJmFjhvIC_W7_vv8tVTJKCM0p_lz68zPn9-6_MEFSfPoySdc4yFuNLpML1qCIpZ0_rEL7M16Zf3_KSYDX-0IVJ9HwB1c1MB4Cq88NZTXxC4Q8m9udJAWWz_UzEfPzEOVc/s1600/google+driverless.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 514px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQghf8ZvGvrXLJmFjhvIC_W7_vv8tVTJKCM0p_lz68zPn9-6_MEFSfPoySdc4yFuNLpML1qCIpZ0_rEL7M16Zf3_KSYDX-0IVJ9HwB1c1MB4Cq88NZTXxC4Q8m9udJAWWz_UzEfPzEOVc/s400/google+driverless.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526994942293952562" border="0" /></a>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-64772701412932210792010-10-08T13:09:00.000-07:002010-10-08T13:17:24.467-07:00Moving To Canada...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: 18px; "><img width="560" src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z205/JekyllnHyde_photos/September7th/Stei090903.gif" /></span>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-78764173547773947262010-10-08T13:01:00.000-07:002010-10-08T13:03:07.068-07:00Trickle Down Economics<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; "><img border="0" src="http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/%7B126558d8-edf7-4620-9a8d-0cf2b6ff8bac%7D.gif" alt="" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; " /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif, Arial;font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">Explain to me how that works again?</span></span></div>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-73424330534189193932010-10-08T12:37:00.000-07:002010-10-08T13:00:48.356-07:00We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 5px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 5px; "><img id="imgCartoon" src="http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/{2936cea7-b86c-4fc6-8dfc-49008cfe8560}.gif" alt="" border="0" width="300" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; " /></span>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-51821986109846715312010-10-07T21:31:00.000-07:002010-10-07T22:14:53.249-07:00Staff Sgt. Robert Miller<span class="storyDateline">October 6, 2010</span><br /><div class="bioInfo"><br />President Barack Obama awarded the Medal of Honor Wednesday to the family of an Army Green Beret who grew up in Wheaton, IL. Staff Sergeant Robert Miller died in the line of duty in Afghanistan in 2008. The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military honor. At 24, Miller was the youngest Green Beret in his squad. The solemn ceremony was held in the East Room of the White House.<br /></div><p> </p><div class="relatedMod"><p><a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=7709819&pid=7709349" name="&pos=//Story//Related"></a></p></div> Miller was a Pashto-speaking Special Forces weapons expert who led a joint U.S.-Afghan patrol — and allied aircraft — in attacking a suspected Taliban compound in northwest Afghanistan's Kunar province, near the Pakistani border. <p>In pre-dawn darkness on Jan. 25, 2008, as Staff Sgt. Miller and the lead element of the patrol entered the mouth of the narrow valley, they confronted an insurgent hiding behind a large boulder. Refusing to surrender, the insurgent leaped from the boulder and yelled, “Allah Akbar!” and began firing on the lead element from approximately five meters. Staff Sgt. Miller stepped forward to return fire and killed the insurgent instantly.</p><p>This contact initiated a near-ambush from a company-sized group of insurgents. The patrol was completely vulnerable, in the kill zone and without cover in a complex ambush with insurgent fighting positions located to the front, the left, and the right.</p><p>It soon became evident that numerous insurgents occupied prepared, elevated and hardened fighting positions in the mountain rock with overhead cover along the North and South valley ridgeline.<br /></p><p>As enemy fire erupted from the high ground, Staff Sgt. Miller called out the contact report to his team members and his detachment commander located behind him. He simultaneously engaged multiple insurgent positions.</p><p>In the face of devastating insurgent fire, the members of the Afghan National Army, who were located directly behind Staff Sgt. Miller broke formation and bound away downhill and out of the kill zone, leaving Staff Sgt. Miller alone and with no support in the open terrain.</p><p>To the front of Staff Sgt. Miller’s position one insurgent cluster was inflicting devastating hostile fire on the retreating ANA members. Understanding the potential for catastrophe, Staff Sgt. Miller boldly charged the enemy and accurately engaged the entire force with his automatic weapon, thus eliminating the threat.</p><p>With heavy fire from insurgent forces from all sides of his position engulfing him, Staff Sgt. Miller continued to engage at least four other insurgent positions, killing or wounding at least 10 insurgents.</p><p>The highlighted muzzle flash and the distinct sound from his gun, a SAW, instantly marked Staff Sgt. Miller as an easily identifiable target. Cognizant that his vulnerability increased with every burst from his SAW, Staff Sgt. Miller continued to engage the enemy courageously drawing fire away from his team and onto his position. Within seconds, Staff Sgt. Miller began receiving a majority of the insurgents’ heavy volume of fire.</p><p>Realizing that his team was pinned down and unable to actively engage the enemy, Staff Sgt. Miller, with complete disregard for his own personal safety, continued to charge forward through the open area engaging multiple elevated insurgent positions and purposely drawing fire away from his trapped ODA members.</p><p>During his final charge forward, Staff Sgt. Miller threw two hand grenades into fighting positions, destroying the positions and killing or wounding an additional four insurgents. Only when Staff Sgt. Miller realized his fellow team members were out of immediate danger, and in positions to support him, did he attempt to move for cover.</p><p>As he directed his fire to engage enemy positions above him, an insurgent shot him through the right side of his upper torso under his right arm; the area not protected by his body armor. Staff Sgt. Miller immediately turned toward the enemy and shot and killed the insurgent who had wounded him. During this time, Staff Sgt. Miller’s detachment commander also sustained gunshot wounds to his upper chest and shoulder.</p><p>The perilous situation forced the detachment commander to order the ODA to fall back to cover. Staff Sgt. Miller realized his commander was seriously wounded and that, as the point man with ODA’s only SAW, he had the highest potential to inflict the most casualties on the enemy. Again, with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Staff Sgt. Miller remained alone at the front of the patrol, so his team could bound back.</p><p>Ignoring the severity of his critical wound and still completely exposed to intense, direct enemy fire, Staff Sgt. Miller continued to low crawl through the snow, incessantly fighting uphill into the valley to engage insurgent positions to the East and South in order to draw fire away from his wounded commander and identify insurgent positions to his fellow ODA members.</p><p>Despite suffering a second and fatal wound, Staff Sgt. Miller remained steadfast and continued his selfless acts of heroism. He provided essential disposition and location reports of insurgent actions and he relentlessly fired his SAW until he expended all of his ammunition and threw his final hand grenade.</p><p>At the first opportunity, members of Staff Sgt. Miller’s team bound up to his position to render aid and recover him. Enemy reinforcements overwhelmed the recovery team with direct fire causing the team to seek cover. During the recovery attempt, the enemy’s precision was clearly evident as team members sustained multiple hits from small arms fire to their body armor and equipment.</p><p>Approximately an hour and 45 minutes later, a quick reaction force arrived, which allowed the ODA to lead a patrol back into the valley to recover Staff Sgt. Miller.<br /></p><p>The entire battle lasted nearly seven hours.</p><p>Post-battle intelligence reports indicate that in excess of 140 insurgents participated in the ambush, more than 40 were killed and over 60 were wounded. Staff Sgt. Miller is credited with killing more than 16 and wounding over 30 insurgents. His valor under fire from a numerically superior force, complete selflessness and disregard for his own life, combined with his unmatched ability to accurately identify and engage insurgent positions, allowed his patrol to move to the safety of covered positions.</p><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;" >An Army website, </span><a style="font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" target="_blank" href="http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/miller">http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/miller>army.mil/medalofhonor/miller</a><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-family:times new roman;" > honors Miller and details his bravery during battle. Click on the "battlescape" tab at the top of the site to see the animation recreating the battle. </span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY5bLg9ah8ehBZwWQgTckhmdwARTw94PMVRO7A_MOcAcT48y-ZeYPmY950qLqSqDivdBlugEvh9sbcPf-FlGrlal-aP_uR_HJyORWWYSIimqhHoOgzSm0iagsjvaRAE2STBNsCAU5I4G0/s1600/Medal-of-Honor-Miller.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 362px; height: 185px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY5bLg9ah8ehBZwWQgTckhmdwARTw94PMVRO7A_MOcAcT48y-ZeYPmY950qLqSqDivdBlugEvh9sbcPf-FlGrlal-aP_uR_HJyORWWYSIimqhHoOgzSm0iagsjvaRAE2STBNsCAU5I4G0/s400/Medal-of-Honor-Miller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525531790010141138" border="0" /></a> "I wish Rob was here to receive this himself," said Phil Miller, his father. <p>"I looked to my right to see where he was. I literally saw him charging the enemy." said Staff Sgt. Nicholas McGarry, Us Army. </p><p> </p> <p>"He saved my life and the lives of numerous soldiers that day - both American and Afghan," said Major Robert Cusick, U.S. Army. </p><p>"His ability to engage the enemy allowed us and myself to be medevaced off the battlefield and allowed the rest of the team to pull back and get back to the base alive," said Major Cusick. </p><p> </p>President Obama talked about Miller's family, his siblings, especially one of them who is now becoming a soldier following his brother's footsteps by training to become a Green Beret. <p> Staff Sgt. Miller moved to Wheaton at the age of 5. He attended St. Michael School and graduated from Wheaton North High School where he was captain of the gymnastics team. </p><p>Miller is the third U.S. Military member who has served in Afghanistan to receive the Medal of Honor.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsrqAETmOBWHf-4w2mm-O5b5BdthOp31XjSl3IsRdVOFIyhyphenhyphenkVvJO6SeSszx5IH7CI3jArZ7itsyrvN6Nf2NOfCdF379JvYnMyT0SlOv5CLouVr2KVmRxy8te5sjOQcBvpDmcYB4OrcE/s1600/SSG+Miller.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 378px; height: 530px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsrqAETmOBWHf-4w2mm-O5b5BdthOp31XjSl3IsRdVOFIyhyphenhyphenkVvJO6SeSszx5IH7CI3jArZ7itsyrvN6Nf2NOfCdF379JvYnMyT0SlOv5CLouVr2KVmRxy8te5sjOQcBvpDmcYB4OrcE/s400/SSG+Miller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525532721761267906" border="0" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p> </p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-1803834505343927942010-10-07T21:18:00.000-07:002010-10-07T21:20:56.287-07:00Learning To Appreciate Our Lives As They Are<div class="inside-head2"> Unfinished, Not Unhappy: Imperfect pieces bring life together perfectly </div><p class="byLine">The Final Word By Craig Wilson<br /></p><span class="inside-copy"><p>It seems most every magazine these days offers us hope on its cover. Lose Weight Today! Fall in Love Tonight! Become a Millionaire Right Now! There's little we can't do if we just buy the magazine and follow the tips.</p><p>The October issue of <i>Whole Living</i>, for instance, offers up "Stress-Free Simplicity: Create Outer Order and Inner Calm." I bit. Who doesn't want outer order and inner calm?</p><p>Among the articles was one on <a href="http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm">wabi sabi</a>, the Japanese philosophy that celebrates what's natural, flaws and all. There's beauty in the imperfect. A well-worn kitchen table is better than new. Get it?</p><p>I'm happy to hear about this, since my life is far from perfection. In fact, I should be downright ecstatic if this wabi sabi thing is the real deal. Much of my furniture is worn. So am I. </p><p>Despite the fact we just underwent a major makeover — painting, plastering, refinishing of floors — our 140-year-old townhouse still boasts imperfections. And before long, the cracks will reappear, which I now understand is a very good thing. (I wish I'd known all this before we spent thousands of dollars.)</p><p>But what I was most pleased to learn is that wabi sabi pertains to people, too — that you accept each other, even when they are "imperfect, unfinished and mortal." It says so right here in the article.</p><p>I like the word "unfinished." Maybe that's why I enjoy children so much. They're works in progress.</p><p>My neighbor Josie is 5. She often hangs out at our kitchen window, hoping for a handout, or at least some scintillating conversation. We joke around. (She's enrolled in a tae kwon do class on Saturday mornings now, so I watch what I say these days.)</p><p>Josie arrives at our house using a variety of transportation — wagons, scooters, bikes. Her favorite bike of late is a very Philippe Starck-like machine made of wood. It has no pedals. Josie's feet move her along, and at quite a good clip, I might add. </p><p>She was patrolling the neighborhood the other day when I asked her if she wanted to go to the corner store with me. Her mom nodded OK.</p><p>So Josie and I headed out, covering the two blocks in no time. Before I knew it, she was riding her bike right into the store and down the aisle. She pulled up to the candy display, reached up for a handful of Reese's Pieces, handed them to me, then rode right back down the aisle and out into the afternoon sun. I paid.</p><p>"Focus on the sensations of the other person," the <a href="http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm">wabi sabi</a> people say. How could I not?</p><p>Unfinished? You bet.</p><p>Imperfect? Hardly.</p></span>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-71704253171036002972010-10-07T12:53:00.001-07:002010-10-07T12:53:57.802-07:00Keys To Happiness....Want to be happy? A 26-year study of Germans suggests it's not that hard:<ul><li>Marry someone who's not neurotic.</li><li>Focus more on friends and family, less on material goods.</li><li>Get involved in making the world a better place.</li><li>Have a job but also enough time for leisure.</li><li>Stay physically active.</li><li>For men, don't be underweight. For women, don't be obese.</li></ul><p>These are, of course, wildly simplified suggestions. But the researchers, in Germany, Holland and Australia, developed them after studying a lot of data on a lot of people. They worked from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Socio-Economic_Panel" target="_blank">German Socio-Economic Panel Survey</a>, which has been doing every-five-year interviews with Germans since 1984 and currently has over 60,000 people enrolled.</p><p>The findings are interesting because currently psychologists and economists are in disagreement about just how happy people can be. Since the 1980s psychologists have generally subscribed to the <a href="http://www.psych.umn.edu/psylabs/happness/happy.htm" target="_blank">set-point theory of happiness</a>, which says that happiness is between 40 and 50% genetic. According to this theory, once you're an adult there's not much you can do about how happy you are. One large study of twins said "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=8r4KlgerjcUC&pg=PA804&lpg=PA804&dq=1996+trying+to+be+happier+may+be+as+futile+as+trying+to+be+taller&source=bl&ots=lan9sM5NXe&sig=7xShCaieyWTQVydFlUDGqU_KnB4&hl=en&ei=WwWqTNnKOoP6lwelspTlDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=1996%20trying%20to%20be%20happier%20may%20be%20as%20futile%20as%20trying%20to%20be%20taller&f=false" target="_blank">trying to be happier may be as futile as trying to be taller</a>."</p><p>But since the 1990s economists have been looking at how the world we live in affects happiness levels, and what can be done to change them. They call happiness a "subjective utility" and focus on ways that government and social policies can affect the overall happiness of citizens.</p><p>Analysis of the German data, published in today's edition of the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/recent" target="_blank"><em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em>,</a> appears to show that happiness can indeed change over time, indicating that social policy could have an effect. The paper says:</p><blockquote><p>Key choices relate to one's partner, the trade off between work and leisure, social participation, and healthy lifestyle. Life goals and choices have as much or more impact on life satisfaction than variables routinely described as important in previous research, including extroversion and being married or partnered. If we use these last two variables as benchmarks, it appears that partner's level of neuroticism, one's own commitment to family and altruistic goals, church attendance, participation in social events, and regular exercise are all equally or more important than being extroverted). For both men and women, doing fewer paid hours of work than they want apparently has close to the same impact on life satisfaction as not being married/partnered. For women, being obese actually reduces life satisfaction more than not having a partner.</p></blockquote><p>Other interesting findings:</p><p>-- Finding a partner who is similar to oneself doesn't seem to be linked to long-term happiness, despite some research suggesting that partners with similar personalities are likely to be happier.</p><p>-- Being neurotic oneself makes one even more unhappy, but being with someone who is neurotic has a substantial effect on life satisfaction and doesn't get better no matter how long one is married.</p><p>-- "Women whose partners give high priority to family goals are significantly happier than women whose partners give family matters low priority."</p><p>-- Being involved in religion (in the German study either Christianity or Islam) correlated with spending more time on volunteer activities, and higher priority to altruistic and family goals and therefore higher levels of happiness</p><p>-- "The evidence indicates that people who consistently prioritize non zero-sum altruistic goals or family goals are more satisfied with life than people who prioritize goals relating to their own career and material success. Giving priority to altruistic goals is strongly association with higher life satisfaction." In fact, "prioritizing success and material goals is actually harmful to life satisfaction."</p><p>-- Working too little is worse than working too much (presumably because you don't have enough money), but not having work at all is worst of all.</p><p>-- For men, being underweight is associated with lower life satisfaction. Obese women (a<a href="http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/" target="_blank"> body mass index </a>of over 30) were relatively unhappy, but women who were overweight (BMI of between 25–29.9) has average levels of life satisfaction.</p><p>By Elizabeth Weise</p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-45285764578194561882010-10-07T08:49:00.000-07:002010-10-07T09:00:08.174-07:00"Believe Those Who Are Seeking The Truth; Doubt Those Who Find It." - Andre Gide<h1 class="articleHeadline"><span style="font-size:85%;">200-Year-Old Echoes in<br /></span></h1><h1 class="articleHeadline"><span style="font-size:85%;">Muslim Center Uproar</span></h1> <div class="articleSpanImage"><img style="width: 497px; height: 273px;" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/10/07/nyregion/08ZERO1/08ZERO1-articleLarge-v2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /> <div class="credit">Marcus Yam for The New York Times</div> <p class="caption">The Rev. Kevin V. Madigan outside St. Peter’s Church,<br /></p><p class="caption">the oldest Roman Catholic church in New York State. </p> </div> <h6 class="dateline">By PAUL VITELLO Published: October 7, 2010</h6> <div class="articleBody"><p>Many New Yorkers were suspicious of the newcomers’ plans to build a house of worship in Manhattan. Some feared the project was being underwritten by foreigners. Others said the strangers’ beliefs were incompatible with democratic principles. </p> </div> <div class="articleInline runaroundLeft"><div class="inlineImage module"> Father Madigan celebrates Mass at St. Peter’s, which is observing its 225th anniversary. </div> </div> <p> Concerned residents staged demonstrations, some of which turned bitter. </p><p> But cooler heads eventually prevailed; the project proceeded to completion. And this week, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Lower Manhattan — the locus of all that controversy two centuries ago and now the oldest Catholic church in New York State — is celebrating the 225th anniversary of the laying of its cornerstone. </p><p> The Rev. Kevin V. Madigan, who is the pastor of St. Peter’s, said that when he began reading about the history of his church early this year in preparation for the Oct. 5 anniversary, he was not initially struck by the parallels between the opposition it had faced and what present-day Muslims have encountered in proposing a community center and mosque near ground zero. </p><p> “There was no controversy when they first proposed it, and we were just pleased to have a new neighbor,” said Father Madigan, whose church, at Barclay and Church Streets, sits two blocks from 51 Park Place, the site of the proposed Islamic center. Both are roughly equidistant from the construction zone at ground zero. </p><p> But as an uproar enveloped the Islamic project over the summer, the priest said he was startled by how closely the arguments and parries of the project’s opponents mirrored those brought against St. Peter’s in 1785. </p><p> Father Madigan detailed those similarities in a letter to parishioners over the summer, in two sermons he delivered at an interfaith gathering last month and at a special Mass last Sunday marking the church’s anniversary. </p><p> For starters, he said, there was the effort to move the church project somewhere else. </p><p> City officials in 18th-century New York urged project organizers to change the church’s initial location, on Broad Street, in what was then the heart of the city, to a site outside the city limits, at Barclay and Church. Unlike the organizers of Park51, who have resisted suggestions they move the project to avoid having a mosque so close to the killing field of ground zero, the Catholics complied. </p><p> Then there were fears about nefarious foreign backers. Just as some opponents of Park51 have said that the $100 million-plus project will be financed by the same Saudi sheiks who bankroll terrorists, many early-American Protestants saw the pope as the sworn enemy of democracy, and feared that his followers’ little church would be the bridgehead of a papal assault on the new United States government. </p><p> The Park51 organizers say they will not accept any foreign backing. But with about only 200 Catholics in New York in the late 1700s, most of them poor, St. Peter’s Church would not have been built without a handsome gift from a foreigner — and a papist at that — $1,000 from King Charles III of Spain. </p><p> The angry eruptions at some of the demonstrations this summer against the proposed Muslim center — with signs and slogans attacking Islam — were not as vehement as those staged against St. Peter’s, Father Madigan said. </p><p> On Christmas Eve 1806, two decades after the church was built, the building was surrounded by Protestants incensed at a celebration going on inside — a religious observance then viewed in the United States as an exercise in “popish superstition,” more commonly referred to as Christmas. Protesters tried to disrupt the service. In the melee that ensued, dozens of people were injured and a policeman was killed. </p><p> “We were treated as second-class citizens; we were viewed with suspicion,” Father Madigan wrote in his letter to parishioners, adding, “Many of the charges being leveled at Muslim-Americans today are the same as those once leveled at our forebears.” </p><p> The pastor said that Park51’s organizers would have to “make clear that they are in no way sympathetic to or supported by any ideology antithetical to our American ideals, which I am sure they can do.” But he said Catholic New Yorkers have a special obligation to fulfill. </p><p> The discrimination suffered by the first Catholics in America, he said, “ought to be an incentive for us to ensure that similar indignities not be inflicted on more recent arrivals.” </p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-82384240900031907662010-10-06T19:59:00.000-07:002010-10-06T20:01:02.269-07:00Paying Off a 30-Year Fixed-Rate Mortgage in 15 Years<p><strong></strong><br />Posted By Laura from Green Panda House On September 11, 2009</p> <p>We’re buying a town house and it has a been a huge learning process. We have been running the numbers and making sure everything works budget wise. While looking through some books and blogs, I noticed some people mention getting a 15 year fixed rate mortgage instead of a 30 year fixed rate mortgage.</p> <p>Talking with friends and family, many of them advocate getting a 30 year mortgage and paying it off in 15 years. Their reasoning is this gives you some flexibility. I wanted to run the numbers and see if this is a viable solution.</p> <h3>How much money you can save with a 15-year mortgage</h3> <p>Many people may not realize the financial upside of having a fixed 15-year mortgage. Besides paying less total interest, they typically have lower interest rates than 30-year fixed mortgages. Most of your money in the beginning of your mortgage payments goes to interest. As you move further and further along, more and more of your money goes towards principal.</p> <p>Comparing a $200,000 fixed-rate mortgage for 30 years at 5.25% and a mortgage for 15 years at 5%, you get the following results:</p> <table> <tbody><tr style="border-width: 0pt 0pt 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: black;"> <td><br /></td> <td align="right"><strong>30-Year</strong></td> <td align="right"><strong>15-Year</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Monthly Payments:</strong></td> <td align="right">$1,104.41</td> <td align="right">$1,581.59</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Interest Paid:</strong></td> <td align="right">$197,587.59</td> <td align="right">$84,686.20</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Total Paid:</strong></td> <td align="right">$397,587.59</td> <td align="right">$284,686.19</td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p>You save a total of $112,901.39 in interest going with the 15-year fixed mortgage. Could you use that $112,901.39 for something else?</p> <h3>The downside of a 15-year mortgage</h3> <p>The downside for a 15-year mortgage is the <a href="http://www.greenpandatreehouse.com/2009/05/how-much-house-you-can-afford/" target="_blank">same as any other mortgage: affordability</a>. If you can afford a 15-year mortgage comfortably, congratulations. This is a great option for paying less interest over the life of the loan.</p> <p>If money will be very tight with a 15-year mortgage and you are a bit hesitant with the monthly budget, you have two options:</p> <ul><li>Wait until you have enough buffer room in your monthly budget for a 15 year. Save up while you’re waiting and put down a larger down payment.</li><li>Decide to get a 30 year loan and come up with a plan to accelerate your loan.</li></ul> <p>You also have to weigh the <a href="http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/ben-stein-invest-or-pay-off-mortgage/" target="_blank">opportunity costs of the money difference</a>. That extra money could be redirected to investing more into the stock market for retirement or some other financial decision.</p> <h3>Will you pay a 30-year fixed mortgage in 15-years?</h3> <p>Dave Ramsey mentions the statistic that <a href="http://www.daveramsey.com/the_truth_about/mortgages_11902.html.cfm" target="_blank">more than 97% of people who planned to pay their 30-year mortgage in 15-years</a> do not. He has seen from his personal experience running his program that people lack the will power to keep up regularly with mortgage payments.</p> <p>Ramit also observes that many <a href="http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/spending-exceptions/" target="_blank">people believe that they are the exception</a> to the rule. This can lead some to not prepare properly. You may plan on paying your mortgage in 15 years, but if you rely on pure will power, you can set yourself up for failure.</p> <h3>Why pay off a mortgage sooner?</h3> <p>There are a few reasons why someone wants to pay off their mortgage sooner than 30 years. One popular reason is that they want the “peace of mind” in owning their home outright. If they lost their job, or if they experienced a pay cut, people would feel better knowing they did not have a mortgage hanging over their head.</p> <h3>How to accelerate your mortgage payments yourself</h3> <p>You can accelerate your payments even if you have a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Automating payments can help you pay off your mortgage sooner and avoid some mental barriers to staying focused on your goal. By not managing the payments personally on a on a monthly basis, you can increase your chances of paying off the mortgage a lot sooner.</p> <ol><li><strong>Start by examining your budget line by line.</strong> Know exactly what your actual income and expenses are. This will save you time from adjusting payments often as you realize you overestimated what you can put in.</li><li> <strong>Have a buffer.</strong> If you don’t have a fully funded emergency fund, consider getting that taken care of before accelerating mortgage payments.</li><li><strong>Set up an automated payment plan.</strong> You can go through your mortgage company or you can go through your online bill pay. <strong>Note:</strong> Some mortgage companies offer programs to send extra payments but they cost you some money.</li><li><strong>Start off with an extra payment that leaves you some wiggle room.</strong> As you get a raise in your income, increase your accelerated payments little by little. By adjusting it every year or so with your raise, you are accelerating your payments without missing the money.</li><li><strong>Automation is key.</strong> You can build your payments up through the years while still having money to invest for retirement, save for other goals, and pay your bills.</li></ol> <p>This automated system can give you some flexibility in case your income decreases, like a pay cut or lay off. You simply pause or lower your extra payments and put them into your savings account as needed.</p> <p>Even if you don’t hit the 15 year mark, you will still save tens of thousands of dollars by avoiding more interest payments. Think about it, you’re saving couple of years of salary for less than an hour of work spent on a phone call and online bill payment! I think that’s a great trade off.</p>Article taken from Consumerism Commentary - <a href="http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/" target="_blank">http://www.consumerismcommentary.com</a><br />URL to article: <a href="http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/paying-off-a-30-year-fixed-rate-mortgage-in-15-years/" target="_blank">http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/paying-off-a-30-year-fixed-rate-mortgage-in-15-years/</a>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-1616531386112971452010-10-06T07:17:00.000-07:002010-10-06T09:41:45.898-07:00Parent Pledge<h1 class="story_headline"> <span style="font-size:78%;">Indiana asks parents to take pledge for schools </span></h1> <h3 class="story_subhead"> <span style="font-size:78%;">Hopes to encourage commitment at home </span></h3> <p> </p><div class="date"> <div style="display: block; float: left;">October 6, 2010</div> <br /> </div> <div class="byline" style="clear: left;"> </div> <p>INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Department of Education is touting a new "<a href="http://www.doe.in.gov/parentpledge/">parents pledge</a>" it hopes will increase parent involvement in schools. </p> <p>State Supt. Tony Bennett says the pledge is a call to action for Hoosier parents. Parents can sign the pledge online or at one of the more than 80 schools that are promoting the pledge. </p> <p>"By signing Indiana's Parent Pledge, you are signifying your strong and ongoing commitment toward the academic development and career success of your child," Bennett said. </p> <p>The pledge:</p> <p>• My child will read with an adult or be encouraged to read independently each day.</p> <p>• My child will complete all homework assignments given by school instructors and will be encouraged to ask for help when it is needed.</p> <p>• My child will arrive at school on time, well rested and prepared for a full day of instruction and learning.</p> <p>• My child will treat teachers and fellow classmates with respect and compassion. I will make positive behavior the expectation in my household.</p> <p>• My child will graduate from high school and will understand the importance of a strong education in determining future success.</p> <p>• I will encourage my child to dream big and always give 100 percent effort.</p> <p>• I will treat my child's teachers as a valuable resource and work with them to support academic improvement and classroom behavior expectations.</p> <p>• I will monitor my child's academic growth and stay as involved as possible in my child's education. <i>AP</i></p>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-66300653348501134572010-10-04T11:05:00.000-07:002010-10-04T21:12:51.117-07:00Football Is A Game Of Pride<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1QPQvpFujNuEtJYyR0tg2a782Kz8xzHaADdorjDl6GL2uroJafAq9RZgvgqVd2WMzEWeqBqzuqs_c_WdhQSdm3vs03Qs0Q9R9Cp53fx_OfRy7MzP8LqhEJz-X-4DBkbWnVkFxlF_NHnk/s1600/alg_giants_bears.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1QPQvpFujNuEtJYyR0tg2a782Kz8xzHaADdorjDl6GL2uroJafAq9RZgvgqVd2WMzEWeqBqzuqs_c_WdhQSdm3vs03Qs0Q9R9Cp53fx_OfRy7MzP8LqhEJz-X-4DBkbWnVkFxlF_NHnk/s400/alg_giants_bears.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524254345077468834" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"Lovie is a low-key guy," former Bears coach, Mike Ditka said. "I couldn't believe ... I would have went psycho yesterday. I would have been ballistic. I watched him and he had complete control and composure. I guess that's good, but you have to call somebody out. The line coach or somebody had to call these guys over.<br /><br />"Football to me is a game of pride. You get what you tolerate. If you tolerate the other guy beating you, that's what you're going to get. I look at it that way. This is me and you, one on one. Forget the other guys. I'm going to win my battle, and if we have enough guys winning those individual battles, we'll win this football game. And that's the way you have to approach it."Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-39784549741695213852010-10-02T08:48:00.000-07:002010-10-04T21:34:03.544-07:00"A Country Without A Memory Is A Country Of Madmen." - George Santayana<h6 class="byline">October 1, 2010 By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/ron_lieber/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Ron Lieber" class="meta-per">RON LIEBER</a></h6>One of the most important lessons of the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/loans/mortgages/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about mortgages." class="meta-classifier">mortgage</a> collapse is that potential borrowers need clear explanations of exactly what kind of commitment they are making. <p> So in the last couple of years, there has been a recurring national conversation around proper disclosures, underwriting standards and fiscal prudence. All have nodded their heads solemnly and pledged to do better. </p> <p> And where has this gotten us? Consider a postcard that arrived in mailboxes in September, announcing itself with a brash, declarative statement: the best mortgage on the block. </p> <p> That sounds very 2005, but this is not some fly-by-night operation peddling the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/loans/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about loans." class="meta-classifier">loan</a>. It’s <a href="http://home.ingdirect.com/about/about.asp" title="About ING Direct.">ING Direct USA</a>, the people who popularized the online savings account and have since moved into checking, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/investments/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about investing." class="meta-classifier">investment</a> accounts and mortgages. </p> <p> The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/ing_groep_nv/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about ING Groep N.V" class="meta-org">ING</a> Direct loan is called a <a href="http://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp?s=OrangeMortgage" title="About the Orange Mortgage.">5/1 Orange Mortgage</a>, and as of early September, it came with a 3.25 percent interest rate for the first five years and a projected interest rate of 3.375 percent for the 25 years after that. </p> <p> Yes, you read that right, under 3.5 percent for the next 30 years. </p> <p> But that is not right, in any number of ways. First of all, by not using the words “adjustable rate mortgage” or similar terms to describe the loan, ING Direct violated a simple <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_reserve_system/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the Federal Reserve System." class="meta-org">Federal Reserve</a> disclosure rule that was revised in 2008. </p> <p> And that “projected” interest rate suggesting that today’s record low rates will continue for a generation? It is utter nonsense. But ING Direct seems to have had no choice but to use the numbers that it did, because of another relatively new Federal Reserve rule. </p> <p> It all sort of makes you wonder: have we accomplished anything over the last several years? </p> <p> ING Direct is one of the great (and one of the few) success stories in consumer financial services in the United States over the last decade. Since it opened in the United States in 2000, the company — a unit of the Dutch financial services giant ING — has worked with more than seven million customers, and people have more than $90 billion parked there. It is the 17th-largest bank in the country by deposits. </p> <p> The company grew its savings account business through savvy marketing, but it turns out to be much more complicated to explain mortgages in a handful of snappy sentences. The postcard, for example, notes that the interest rate may increase after the fixed period has ended. But in 2008, the Federal Reserve updated Regulation Z, <a href="http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-1700.html#fdic650022624" title="The advertising portion of Reg Z.">part of which covers mortgage advertisements</a>, in an effort to ensure clear wording from lenders so that customers would never mistake a variable rate loan for a fixed one. </p> <p> The rule sets the following requirement for any entities using the word “fixed” when describing in marketing materials the first period of what is ultimately an adjustable-rate mortgage: The pitch must specifically describe that loan as an “ARM,” an “adjustable-rate mortgage” or a “variable-rate mortgage.” Moreover, lenders or others must use one of these terms before the first mention of a fixed-rate period in any advertisement, just so there is no confusion. </p> <p> ING Direct <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/10/01/your-money/mortgages/20101002-MONEY.html?ref=mortgages" title="A slide show on the ING Direct ad.">did not do this</a>. “We acknowledge that the particular mailer you received lacked the specific words ‘Adjustable Rate,’ ” the company said in a statement, a copy of which <a href="http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/ing-directs-statement-on-its-mortgage-advertising/" title="ING Direct’s statement.">I’ve posted on our Bucks blog</a>. “Although it did say ‘rate is subject to adjustment’ and ‘interest rate may increase.’ The intent was to provide sufficient compelling information to prompt a customer to call for additional details.” </p> <p> The company also promised to be more careful in the future, saying that it “will make certain that future mortgage mailers demonstrate transparency that is representative of ING Direct and that our customers have come to expect.” </p> <p> Here’s the particular problem ING Direct faces in describing its loans. These terms — ARMs and adjustable- or variable-rate loans — are now dirty words among risk-averse consumers, especially those who know the trouble that such loans caused in recent years. </p> <p> Still, ING Direct’s competitors hold their noses and use the terms in their own mortgage mailings. </p> <p> Why? Perhaps in part it’s because they also offer fixed-rate mortgages. ING Direct does not offer standard fixed-rate mortgages, so any customer scared off by its mortgages would need to go elsewhere for a loan, possibly another ING unit. </p> <p> So is that the reason ING Direct seems to bend over backward to avoid using the dirty words? </p> <p> “I don’t share that premise whatsoever,” said Bill Higgins, ING Direct’s chief lending officer, who added that the bank’s own salespeople often suggest to customers that they would be better off with a different type of mortgage. </p> <p> Meanwhile, the bank’s loans appear to have held up pretty well so far. Only 2.88 percent of loans originated in 2007 or earlier are more than 90 days past due at the moment, far below the national average. </p> <p> But then there’s the matter of the “projected interest rate.” Regulation Z requires companies to make a projection and insists that they use current figures to do so. Why use today’s numbers? Well, nobody knows what the rates will be in five or seven years when the interest rate resets on loans like those offered by ING Direct. This rule was changed after some lenders offered teaser rates — say, 1 percent for only a month or so. The Fed’s idea was to give borrowers a sense of the rate they might face. </p> <p> Now, however, any bank that follows the letter of the law without any further explanation ends up leaving the impression that today’s rock-bottom rates will last forever. They almost certainly will rise once the economy improves. </p> <p> So why not just say that rates are likely to go up? When I asked about this, Mr. Higgins repeatedly pointed to other <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/investments/brokerage-and-bank-accounts/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about banks and brokerages." class="meta-classifier">banks</a> that used similar information about the projected rates as ING Direct but offered disclosures that were much less prominent. He added that customers had not complained about the issues I’m raising here. So noted. </p> <p> Then again, ING Direct holds itself to a much higher standard than old-fashioned banks. The president and chairman of ING Direct USA, Arkadi Kuhlmann, stated this plainly in the book he co-wrote, “<a href="http://theorangecodebook.com/book.html" title="About the book.">The Orange Code</a>,” which came out last year. </p> <p> “Telling the truth is not easy,” he wrote. “The best way, of course, is to say the truth easily and quickly when the first opportunity arises.” </p> <p> ING Direct had that opportunity with this postcard. And Regulation Z or no, the likely truth is that the rates on its loan will not be 3.375 percent for the 25 years after the fixed-rate period expires. So why not explain just how high the interest rate could rise and what the highest and lowest monthly payments could be on a typical loan? </p> <p> “I’m not sure what that would add to the advertisement,” Mr. Higgins said. </p> <p> Here’s what it would add: <span style="font-weight: bold;">The loan rate, according to the company, could rise as high as 9.250 percent. So a starting payment of $1,023 on a $235,000 loan could rise by 73 percent, to $1,773. That information does not take up a whole lot of room, even on a postcard. </span></p> <p> Given that this sort of explanation would probably reduce the mortgage applications ING Direct receives, it’s no wonder that the bank is not eager to be on the cutting edge of disclosure. </p> <p> Also, starting early next year, banks will be required to include some of this extra information in disclosure statements that applicants for loans receive later in the process. And ING Direct does let people know <a href="http://helpcenter.ingdirect.com/ingd/Topic.aspx?category=C2BNKHMOMQ#FBNKOMBA08" title="Direct Orange Mortgage F.A.Q">on its Web site</a> how high the rate for this loan could go, though it does not do the math that would allow them to realize that their payments could rise so high. </p> <p> <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/elizabeth_warren/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Elizabeth Warren." class="meta-per">Elizabeth Warren</a>, the Harvard legal scholar, <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2012959457_mortgageprotect22.html" title="A.P. story about Ms. Warren’s comments.">has already made it clear</a> that mortgage disclosures are a priority for the new <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/consumer_financial_protection_bureau/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection." class="meta-org">Consumer Financial Protection Bureau</a> that <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Barack Obama." class="meta-per">President Obama</a> has asked her to set up. On the day Mr. Obama announced her new role, Mr. Kuhlmann wrote a blog post saying that the appointment was “a step in the right direction for consumers.” </p> Perhaps the two of them can begin a joint campaign to make adjustable-rate mortgage lenders present the worst case in every single ad.Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3308201543761701684.post-53332428370484036452010-10-01T06:35:00.000-07:002010-10-01T06:44:10.305-07:00Now, What Have We Learned?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; "><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><img alt="c_09072010.gif" src="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/09/03/c_09072010.gif" width="454" height="382" class="mt-image-center" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; text-align: center; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: auto; " /></p></span><img alt="c_10012010.gif" src="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/09/30/c_10012010.gif" width="454" height="384" class="mt-image-center" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; text-align: center; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: auto; " /></span>Peebleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09666343575673621254noreply@blogger.com0