alocispepraluger102

happy birthday and thank you to one of a kind. no way are you 57.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4644103.stm

anyone would be proud to have him as a grandson. last year, one of his courses was taught by mr.(jon) hendrix and he attended a couple of hendrix concerts. the textbooks from last quarter that were going to be turned in for refund are of course gone.

great to hear bright again. caught you on memorex while i slept.

thanks. he lost everything there but his car and wallet. lots of course work on the computer is, of course, gone. grandpa aloc will make up for what he lacks from his other support. it sure looks like he'll be moving back to the dorms.

until 7pm eastern time. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

(repeated calls on his cell phone finally awakened him. he lives on the third floor. ) More than 100 residents displaced after South Toledo apartment fire BLADE STAFF A fire that started early Saturday morning damaged 11 buildings in a South Toledo apartment complex and caused more than 100 residents to be evacuated from their homes, fire officials said. The three-alarm blaze was reported at 1:30 a.m. at the Hunter's Ridge complex on Gilbralter Heights near Byrne Road and Airport Highway. Battalion Chief David Hitt said no injuries were reported to either residents or firefighters. Fire officials believe fireworks triggered the apartment complex fire. The blaze spread quickly to separate units in the 11 different buildings as they share an attic. The majority of the units are a total loss, with belongings inside the apartments and charred remains visible at the scene. The battalion chief said most of Toledo's fire crews assisted and brought the fire under control by 5:30 a.m. Firefighters are expected to be on scene all day Saturday as the fire is still smoldering. Fire crews from Oregon and Washington Township departments covered Toledo city fire calls overnight while the apartments burned. Displaced residents have been taken to a shelter at the nearby Bowsher High School. The damaged buildings are expected to be torn down throughout Saturday.

wkcr http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

http://www.dailyhome.com/news/2008/dh-loca...d-8f26v3443.htm 'Pre-pay fee' adds to shock at gas pump By Chris Norwood 06-27-2008 Everyone is currently feeling the pain at the pump, and there is not really anything anyone can do about it. But you can avoid some additional pain by paying inside and using your Personal Identification Number (PIN) rather than paying at the pump. According to First National Bank Vice President Chad Jones, gas stations and several other businesses have traditionally included a $1 “preprocessing” fee that is taken off the transaction once the credit card company submits the final paperwork to the bank. But as the price of gas has skyrocketed, credit card companies have determined that $1 is no longer sufficient, and upped the preprocessing fee to as much as $75. “Suppose you have $200 in your account,” Jones explained. “Then you go and buy $100 worth of gas by paying at the pump. There will be a $75 preauthorization fee that will be added on. Now that fee will come off after 24 to 72 hours, but if you go out after you buy your gas and get $50 worth of groceries, your card is either going to be declined or you’re going to get hit with overdraft fees.” The fees are deemed necessary by the credit card companies because they have no way of knowing, once a card is authorized, how much the final transaction will be, let alone whether there will be enough money in the account to cover the purchase. Fees don’t come off immediately because the storeowner first sends each batch of receipts from the store to whichever credit card company, which then send them to the banks, which take off the authorization fee. Thus, the way to avoid this particularly hazardous temporary charge (without having to resort to paying cash) is to pay inside, after you have finished pumping. Since the amount of the transaction is already known, the authorization fee is not necessary. The same rules, Jones added, apply to those using credit cards. “So watch out if you’re getting close to your credit limit, too,” he said. “This isn’t something the banks are doing, and it’s definitely not something the gas stations are doing. This is coming down from the credit card companies. And if gas prices rise again, which the probably will, the fee is going to go up to.”

thanks shrinker man. i missed most of last week's show. cable died.

to those folks who missed the earlier broadcast. this is one of the happiest most delightful hours of live music i have heard in many years. you'll be humming the tunes for days. the quality of this ensemble's playing and respect for this marvelous music gives me chills.

http://www.northtonorth.com/pages/index.shtml

www.chicagotribune.com/news/cs-080622-mike-north-wscr-chicago-radio,0,1213347.story chicagotribune.com Monday is an 'off' day for Mike North WSCR's North quieted amid stalled talks By Teddy Greenstein Tribune reporter 7:50 PM CDT, June 22, 2008 Monday's edition of "The Mike North Morning Show" will not feature Mike North. North told the Tribune on Sunday: "I'm taking tomorrow off, and after that I'm not sure. It's just a cooling-off period, in my opinion." North's contract at WSCR-AM 670 expires July 1, so this appears to be a negotiating ploy. The Score's Dan Bernstein was off the air for about two weeks in 2004 before he re-signed with the station. Terry Boers did the same in 2003, telling listeners, "I might not be back" before returning with a new deal. But this case could be different. After being asked whether he was seeking leverage in negotiations, North seemed to confirm that but also said: "As far as I'm concerned, they basically want me to take some time off." Asked whether that means he had been suspended, North declined to elaborate. WSCR general manager Paul Agase did not return calls seeking comment. North has said that CBS Radio wants him to return as the Score's morning host. But he apparently is unsatisfied with management's offer and has had discussions with numerous outlets in Chicago, including WLS-AM 890. The Score's tandem of Mike Mulligan and Brian Hanley, normally heard 10 a.m. to noon, is expected to fill in while North is away. tgreenstein@tribune.com Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

till 4pm eastern. http://wmbr.mit.edu/

http://www.freakingnews.com/Monster-Pictures--280.asp

Amtrak's Bad Trip If our national passenger rail line can't turn a buck running trains, maybe it can by enlisting in the drug war. Michael W. Lynch | April 19, 2001 In addition to its high prices, weak coffee, bad food, and horrible service, here's one more reason to avoid Amtrak: It gives federal drug cops your travel itinerary. If the narcs don't like how you paid for your ticket (helpful hint: avoid cash), or find a digit wrong in your phone number (or find none at all), or don't like the spelling of your name (any guesses which ones are most suspect?), you may get a visit from a DEA agent and his friendly dope-sniffing pooch when your train pulls into the station. Even if the feds don't find any drugs, they may relieve you of any extra cash you may be carrying, figuring the only use for large amounts of greenbacks is drug transactions. Consider the experience of Sam Thach. In February 2000, a DEA agent showed up at his sleeper cabin after his train pulled into Albuquerque, New Mexico. According to court records, Amtrak provided the drug cops with info from their computer terminal. The cops learned that Thach was traveling from Fullerton, California to Boston Massachusetts. "The $702.50 ticket was purchased with cash on the day of travel," notes a government court brief. "Thach was traveling in sleeper room 6, car #430. No call back number was given on the reservation. Based upon his training and experience, [the DEA agent] Officer Salazar knew that drug traffickers commonly purchase a one way ticket for cash (sic) shortly before the train departs." Thach, who was born in Vietnam and who barely speaks English, had a friend purchase his ticket, explains Thach's attorney, D. Penni Adrian. That partly explains the lack of a return number. Here's another reason: Thach, like other United States residents, didn't see the need to give Amtrak his phone number and, assuming he was in a free country, didn't think failing to do so, combined with purchasing an overpriced ticket, would place him under police surveillance. When the officer approached him, Adrian says it was clear from an audiotape that his language barrier prevented communication. When asked his age, for example, she says he gave the officer the ages of his three daughters. Still, Salazar is a trained government agent, a regular Eliot Ness, so he just knew Thach was up to no good. "Salazar observed that Thach's eyes were opened wide, he swayed and shuffled his feet, and his hands shook while he placed them in and out of his pockets during the conversation of his travel plans," the court brief notes. That, and the fact he had a cell phone and a backpack in his sleeper, was enough for Salazar to start a search of the cabin. Thach was carrying $148,000 in cash, which he claims were proceeds from a lucky gambling streak. Salazar was dubious, and when Thach couldn't produce receipts, he brought in a drug dog to sniff the cash. The first dog found no evidence of drugs on the money, says Adrian, so they brought in another, one with an apparently more refined nose. It caught a whiff of cocaine, as it probably would if it put its snout in your wallet, since much U.S. currency has been thus "contaminated" since before Miami Vice went off the air. Under then-current civil asset forfeiture laws (which were changed later in 2000), the dog's discovery provided probable cause for Salazar to just take the money. He didn't arrest Thach -- that would have meant he had to actually charge him with a crime. Instead, the good officer just boosted $147,000 of Thach's money and sent him on his way, graciously leaving him $1,000 for the rest of his journey. (Considering the prices in what passes for a dining car on Amtrak, a grand would have been just enough for two soggy microwave pizzas and a warm can of Budweiser.) Now it's up to Thach to prove a negative--that his money wasn't the result of a drug transaction. He is suing the government to get his money back. This isn't the America they teach us about in grade school; hell, it's probably not even the America they teach kids about in Vietnamese grade schools. Thach's misfortune -- and that of other people dumb enough to ride Amtrak -- is Amtrak's fortune, and about the only way the railroad has of making one. The DEA and Amtrak refuse to release figures on seizures, although DEA agent Steven Derr, who runs the Albuquerque operation, told the Albuquerque Journal, which broke the story, that both arrests and seizures were "substantial." Amtrak is an old economy company with a dot-com business plan. Which is to say that the more people buy Amtrak's product, the more money it loses. This past fiscal year, the railroad, which has consumed nearly $24 billion in taxpayer money since 1971, reported a record loss of $944 million. Like many dot-coms, it spends money advertising products it can't deliver. Witness the $20 million it used last year to tout its new Acela service from D.C. to New York. Alas, the train rolled out a year late and, although advertised as high speed, it makes the trip exactly two minutes faster than a private railroad did in 1969, according to the U.S. News & World Report. And that's on the rare trip without delays. Amtrak loses money on every route it runs except the Metroliner Train from D.C. to New York City and the heavily subsidized Heartland Flyer, a train that gullible state governments underwrite. (If forced to make it simply on passenger revenues, the Heartland Flyer would lose millions.) "Amtrak loses $2 for every ticket dollar it sells," notes the Heritage Foundation's Ronald D. Utt. Yet unlike dot-coms, which were underwritten by private investors -- and are therefore done and gone--Amtrak is underwritten by tax money, and hence will probably be around forever. Still, in exchange for a $2.2 billion bailout in 1997, Congress told the company that if it's not in the black by 2002, it has to develop a plan to privatize. Needless to say, Amtrak's not going to be in the black by then. That helps explain the motivation for the rail line's partnership with the DEA. While Amtrak lost money on Thach's $702.50 ticket, it made plenty--$14,700--on his trip. In exchange for access to its booking system, the skilled negotiators at Amtrak's New Mexico operation negotiated a 10 percent cut of any money seized. Since Amtrak's deal was first reported in the Albuquerque Journal, the railroad has been on the defensive. It has claimed the deal is one of a kind, but in an email to the Albuquerque Journal, Amtrak said it "will, on request, participate in and provide information for law enforcement." (Amtrak didn't return my calls for clarification.) For its part, the DEA, sees nothing wrong with the arrangement. "I don't consider it an invasion of privacy," one agent told the Albuquerque Journal. An agency spokesperson, Rogene Waite, says the agency has similar deals with bus companies and airlines but won't discuss them, citing the need for law enforcement secrecy. Waite's also mum on whether the DEA's infiltration of Amtrak's reservation system is nationwide or limited to New Mexico. Evidence suggests the former. "Upon reviewing public domain information," Joseph Vranich, a former Amtrak mouthpiece who is now the company's most dogged critic, writes in a April 17 memo, "the Fourth Amendment violations do not appear to be chance occurrences but indeed indicate a pattern of violations, which suggests that a national Amtrak-DEA program is in effect." Last November, for instance, the Albany, New York Times Union reported that "Amtrak has begun to police its skies with a helicopter leased with money forfeited by drug dealers." The account adds, "The money comes to Amtrak from a Justice Department program that rewards state and local authorities that have helped solve drug trafficking cases." In keeping with the real job of government public affairs people, DEA spokesperson Waite refused to comment on the source of funds for the helicopter. Vranich has compiled numerous news stories of train station drug busts, and it's clear that the cops must have access to inside information. For instance, a September 1999 story in the Newark, New Jersey, The Star-Ledger explains how investigators in Washington, D.C. know who to target. Investigators told the paper, "Suspicious signs include people who pay cash for expensive, one-way tickets at the last minute, or whose phone number turns out to be bogus. Getting a sleeper car but not checking any luggage is on the list." Without access to travelers' booking information, how would the cops know any of this information? The ACLU worries that the cops are targeting minorities (which the cops of course deny). Still, sometimes they target the wrong minorities. Carlos Hernandez, a former Newark policeman, knew his rights when he returned to his sleeper cabin on a train from Miami and found cops inspecting it on July 22, 1999. According to The Star-Ledger, the cops told him they wanted to search his luggage because they had been tipped that he had a large amount of narcotics (they'd already been searching his cabin without permission). "I'll bet my kids' life they looked at the train's manifest, saw an Hispanic riding first class, $694 round-trip ticket, and they just wanted to shake me down," Hernandez told The Star-Ledger, noting that they broke the law by entering his cabin without a warrant and without his permission. "You went into my cabin, that's burglary," he said. It certainly is, except when the burglars have badges--and conductor's watches. It's also one hell of a way to

i just came inside as the rain and hail started. now for a fine afternoon of swing and fine imperial stouts!.

wkcr hosted by sid griffiths http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

.............rather, too common sense & forward thinking to be true. McCain calls for building 45 new nuclear reactors By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: June 18, 2008 Filed at 9:20 p.m. ET SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds ''to make clean coal a reality,'' measures designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil. ...and out of the mouth of a u.s. senator. i posted that article half hour ago in my local forum titled "now this is excellent intelligent leadership".

tonight's AP newswire is too good to be true. have at it: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/aponline/news/index.html

Ralph Carmichael? The charts served the purpose, and even worse, the material. Skills like a mo, but... Gordon Jenkins? Hard to go there all the way, because when he was bad, which was usually for me, he was... unbelievably overwrought, about 1000 mile high and a centimeter deep, but when he was good, and sometimes he was, it was still the same, only meaningful, and anybody who can pull that trick of is somebody for whom I have the same type respect I have for a professional thief who never gets caught. Either way, he had his zone, and it was his zone, if only because nobody else would dare to venture there for reasons aplenty. And, OOPS, in spite of those dreadful tentacles of treacle, the Cole/Jenkins sides are amongst Nat's best pop singing. Go figure, if you can. I can't. "And, OOPS, in spite of those dreadful tentacles of treacle, the Cole/Jenkins sides are amongst Nat's best pop singing" YUP

FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2008 Saturday, July 12, 2008 CJO w/ Bill Dobbins www.clevelandjazz.org Famed composer/arranger Bill Dobbins will lead the CJO in two concerts at The Cleveland Bop Stop on Friday & Saturday Jully 11-12. Tickets now on sale...call the CJO Ticket Line at 216-521-2540 to order.

sometimes the subject transcends the author(to old aloc)

Selling kids on Satchmo By Howard Reich Tribune critic April 4, 2008 Click here to find out more! Jon Faddis — one of the most celebrated jazz trumpeters in the world — strolls into the band room at Morgan Park High School, but the kids barely react. Until Faddis puts his horn to his lips. As he rips into Louis Armstrong's classic "West End Blues," complete with high notes that threaten to shatter the window panes of the South Side school, everyone instantly stops horsing around and starts staring at the trumpeter in disbelief. The sound of Faddis playing Satchmo — his clarion tone surely heard for blocks around — has served its purpose, calling everyone to attention. Now it's 15-year-old Ervin Harris' turn to try the treacherous solo. "I wish he hadn't played that before me," says Harris, who heroically attempts the piece, running as many wrong notes as right ones but never giving up. Over and over Harris plays the solo, Faddis coaching him on breathing, phrasing, musical structure, you name it. And in a few minutes, Harris finally nails a stratospheric note that can elude even the pros. Everyone applauds. "Before Mr. Faddis came, I never hit the high note in 'West End Blues' before," says Harris, after the session. "That's why everyone was clapping." Granted, it's a small victory, but one of several that will take place this afternoon as part of a bold initiative headed by Faddis and designed to bring the music of Armstrong to students at the Chicago Public Schools. For the next two months, Faddis and his colleagues at the Chicago Jazz Ensemble — a robust big band that Faddis directs — will be coaching kids at eight Chicago elementary and high schools in music by Armstrong. Their efforts will culminate with a public master class and performance May 20 at Columbia College Chicago, where the CJE is based. Faddis, meanwhile, will lead the Chicago Jazz Ensemble in concert Friday (see accompanying story for details on both events). The new venture, called the 2008 Louis Armstrong Legacy Program and Celebration, attests to Faddis' increasingly prominent role in music performance and education in this city. Though he lives in New Jersey and relentlessly tours the globe, Faddis has pushed well beyond his official local gig as artistic director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. Teaching master classes across the city and suburbs, judging jazz competitions in Chicago high schools, hosting pizza parties for students and teachers in his Chicago apartment, Faddis has become a protean force for jazz in a city that has nurtured it for roughly a century. But nothing Faddis has done here to date — apart from heading the CJE — has been as carefully orchestrated as the Armstrong Legacy Program. Building on Faddis' longtime efforts to bring great music to kids who don't get enough of it, the Armstrong enterprise attempts to educate students on the value of Satchmo's art and the lessons of his remarkable, rags-to-riches life story. "These kids need to know about Louis Armstrong, because it helps to make them stronger as people," says Faddis, after the session. "Here comes a guy — even though it's 100 years ago — who grew up in the worst conditions in New Orleans, and he rose above all of that to be one of the most recognized figures in the world. "I think knowing about Louis Armstrong gives these kids hope. And it's not the type of hope one may glean from looking at rappers with all of their bling. I think it's a more human type of hope. It's about spirituality, it's about energy, it's about the universality of our humanity, our pain and our suffering, but also our joy in life." Armstrong's music certainly contains all those qualities, and, as Faddis suggests, the fabled New Orleans trumpeter transcended obstacles not so different from the ones faced by inner-city Chicago students. Born poor, raised in a New Orleans tenement and arrested as a child for firing a gun on New Year's Eve in 1912, Armstrong was sent by a New Orleans court to the Colored Waif's Home. There he discovered the music that would transform his life and help usher in the Jazz Age. Making a difference Faddis' challenge at Morgan Park High is not just to invite these students into Armstrong's world but to persuade them that playing his music can profoundly affect their lives, as well. "Back when Armstrong was doing this music, in the 1920s, it was brand-new — just like hop-hop," Faddis tells the teenagers. In Armstrong's day, Faddis continues, "There weren't opportunities for us. We didn't have an Oprah Winfrey and a Michael Jordan. We had Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway." Playing music, Faddis argues, can be these kids' tickets out of often difficult circumstances. Master an instrument, he tells them, and there's a chance they can get a scholarship to college. "Studies show that students who study hard and go on to college have a much better chance of survival," Faddis informs the students, during the rehearsal. "Not just 'money survival.' Survival." The question, though, is whether jazz — a music that can seem historic to these teenagers — can inspire them to play. "I think this Louis Armstrong project will give kids another vehicle where they can perform," says William McClellan, music curriculum supervisor for the office of arts education in the Chicago Public Schools. It was McClellan who welcomed Faddis' initiative into the school system. "Our kids need to perform," says McClellan. "In light of all of this violence that's going on, the one constant that we know is that in music you're in rehearsal at times of the day when mayhem goes on. "So many people have been saved through their performances," adds McClellan, who counts himself among them. The Armstrong project began with Phoebe Jacobs, executive vice president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, the New York-based organization that aims to support jazz initiatives in the three cities where the trumpeter's career was rooted: New Orleans, New York and Chicago. Setting the pace With a major Armstrong archive flourishing in New York and a summer music camp training kids in New Orleans, it was time for the foundation's efforts to be felt in Chicago, says Jacobs. This is the city, after all, where Armstrong made the greatest recordings of his career, the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, which in the mid-1920s codified the ground rules for the art of jazz improvisation. Though Jacobs had made previous inquiries into supporting Chicago jazz, it wasn't until she began discussing the subject in earnest with Faddis last year, she says, that the concept of the Legacy Program emerged. By bringing members of Faddis' Chicago Jazz Ensemble into the public schools, the Armstrong Foundation believed it could achieve the dual goals of promoting its namesake's music while reaching out to kids — something Satchmo always loved to do. Backed by $40,000 from the Armstrong Foundation and $25,000 from the Polk Brothers Foundation, the Legacy Program quickly won the support of the Chicago Public Schools, and not only because it doesn't cost the schools a cent. Equally important, it was the nature of the program Faddis designed that fueled its entry into the school system. Specifically, Faddis arranged some of Armstrong's seminal Hot Five and Hot Seven tunes so that they can be played by any combination of instruments. Though Faddis transcribed Armstrong's solo trumpet parts note for note, the rest of the scoring is less literal, encouraging kids to improvise their own parts and come up with their own versions. "I wanted to do this because some schools may have only a trombone, a piano and a bass — so any one of those instruments can take the lead and be featured," says Faddis. Moreover, by providing the youngsters with recordings of these Armstrong tunes in a bossa nova version by guitarist Charlie Byrd and a New Orleans roots setting by Nicholas Payton, among others, the project encourages kids to break away from the conventional. "The idea is to use Louis Armstrong's music as the springboard to their own creativity," says Faddis. "A lot of kids today are used to all kinds of rhythms — they can incorporate them to Louis Armstrong's music." The openness of this approach, along with the freedom it gives kids to transform vintage music according to their own tastes, may be its strongest asset. Faddis and his associates are hoping that if students can to relate to Armstrong's music on their own terms, this pilot program could spread beyond the current eight schools.What the youngsters come up with and how good it sounds won't be known until May 20, when they convene at Columbia College for an Armstrong Celebration, where they'll be judged by Faddis and others on creativity and musicianship. Six of the students will win scholarships to attend the Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp in New Orleans; the rest will be able to tell their friends they got to hang with Faddis. On this afternoon at Morgan Park High School, the students seem excited, though not star struck. "I never heard of him until this," says drummer Nadine Robinson, 17. "When I came I wasn't skeptical, but I didn't know what to expect." So how'd it go? "Great," says Robinson. "I never thought about playing those songs in those different ways." hreich@tribune.com Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

i just read this. damn. will def. check the archives.