alocispepraluger102

Mr. Donche could use a new geography book. that comment, i think, was tongue-in-cheek.

Afghanistan and Wyoming: A Comparison December 24th, 2006 The distance between Wyoming and Afghanistan is extensive, reaching nearly 800 thousand miles. The country of Afghanistan is a land-locked mass of desolation, populated by a unique breed of people, most of whom possess livestock and/or firearms. None of the vehicles are required to pass an emmissions test, and many of the drivers are skilled on dirt thoroughfares. Everywhere you turn there is construction of some sort taking place. The landscape itself is a variation of mountains, valleys, rivers, sparsely populated urban collections of a relatively simplistic nature, one tree on the Eastern side and many on the Western, lots of rocks and dirt, and snow. The countryside is primarily the same color as the University of Wyoming athletic teams, as is Wyoming’s beautiful countryside. The dust is ubiquitous; it is alive and has ninja-like qualities, efficiently sneaking up on you and lurking at every turn. It is bordered to the South by Pakistan, which it aspires to be like in all things. But, like Colorado, Pakistan has more people and thinks it is better than Afghanistan. The animals, both wild and domestic, are all free range, which means at any given moment one could find itself fused to the framework of your automobile. Large spiders run rampant. A similarly common phenomenon is the relentless ration of high-speed winds which one becomes oblivious to after enough torment. The weather can change at a moment’s notice. There are more animals than people, and at least six cars for every citizen. There are more trucks than any other type of vehicle. Many of the citizens speak broken English. It is not advisable to drink the water in some places. A portion of the population still uses outhouses. The children all want to live somewhere else. Many people move away, only to return later. There are still early-model tractors in use. Many people attend religious services, sometimes because there is nothing else to do. Each village has at least a mechanic who can fix anything with anything else, a grocer, and sometimes a gas station. It takes a long time to get from one end to the other. The tourists always stand out. You don’t need to lock your door sometimes, and sometimes there are no doors anyways. Everyone seems to know everyone else. Some scientists speculate that Afghanistan is Wyoming’s less desirable twin. The above description of Afghanistan might give some the impression that it sucks terribly, however, such is not the case. Well, at least not for the reason that first crosses one’s mind. The point is, being that I am from Wyoming, and even though I am far from home, I see a lot of things that remind me of the big double-u y. It is obvious that the folks back home keep us in their minds and hearts, and we appreciate everything you do to support us over here. Don’t ever think that your actions go unnoticed–we see it. We are bombarded with thoughtful gifts and letters and thanks from you all each day. It is clear that you care, but I wanted you all to know that you are in our hearts also. Have a Merry Christmas! –Senior Airman Dan Donche, 20th Expeditionary Air Support Operations Squadron, Afghanistan http://www.casperstartribune.net/militaryBlog/

just found i missed the sinatra orgy. damn. damn. damn. havent checked hrb in a long time. archives, maybe?

a 6am nightcap, and a fine one at that-----great lakes edmund fitzgerald porter

........ am very partial to the recent thrilljockey 'frequency' recording with nicole, bankhead, wilkerson, and avreeyal ra(which can be purchased and downloaded from thrilljockey).

to run a 6 minute mile on my 63rd birthday next december 23.

wild turkey rare breed. this bottle isnt particularly special, very smooth, too spicy, too much new whiskey in the blend. still 108 proof!

nikki definitely aint no bachrach tune(plays pretty, with lots of feeling, though)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainmen...ent_critics-hed 2006 CHICAGOANS OF THE YEAR: JAZZ Nicole Mitchell: An inspirational, multifaceted innovator Advertisement By Howard Reich Tribune arts critic December 31, 2006 Just a few years ago, Nicole Mitchell was a promising Chicago flutist generating palpable buzz among local music connoisseurs. Today, she's an internationally known artist who brings the sound of Chicago to audiences around the world, and not only through her virtuosity on flute. As a composer, bandleader and jazz conceptualizer, she emerged in 2006 as a center of gravity for music in Chicago and beyond. Fellow musicians, major promoters and leading arts organizations drew energy and inspiration from her work and her vision. In the past 12 months alone, Mitchell earned ovations from Paris to Rome to Vancouver; led a contingent of innovative musicians during a "Made in Chicago" jazz festival in Poland; and won a coveted commission from Chamber Music America to compose a large-scale work, to be premiered next year in New York. That she also directed her Black Earth Ensemble to wide acclaim, toiled as co-president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and created the AACM Creative Youth Ensemble suggests that she's an artist on a mission. "I'm getting to stretch out," says Mitchell, with characteristic understatement. "It just seems a natural progression, with more and more people being exposed to my work." Certainly an ever-growing audience is seeking her out, realizing that Mitchell has blossomed from ascendant flutist to multifaceted artist. Ironically, her greatest work of 2006 may be least known to Chicagoans, because she composed an epic, two-hour-plus suite that received its world premiere last month in Poznan, Poland, in a performance with such noted colleagues as vocalist Dee Alexander, bassist Tatsu Aoki and saxophonist David Boykin. The "Harambee Project" drew critical and popular acclaim in Poland, where a standing-room-only crowd embraced the Chicagoans. "Everyone loved Nicole," says Lauren Deutsch, executive director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago and co-organizer of the Chicago-to-Poznan expedition (which also featured Deutsch's celebrated photos of the Chicago jazz scene). "The whole city was pretty much bubbling over with excitement when we got there," adds Mitchell. "Every concert was SRO -- they really didn't want us to stop." The reason, says Mitchell, has less to do with herself and more to do with sound and spirit of jazz, Chicago style. "Whenever I go to Poland or Paris or wherever, people ask me, `Why does all this great music come out of Chicago?'" says Mitchell. "I think it's because of the community of musicians and supporters who live in Chicago." None more promising than Mitchell. ---------- hreich@tribune.com Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

alfred brendel complete piano works(mid-60's) joseph krips-beethoven symphonies(60's) a big box of duke ellington radio transcriptions sponsored by social security(60's)

Gene-engineered cattle resist mad cow disease: study WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and Japanese scientists reported on Sunday that they had used genetic engineering to produce cattle that resist mad cow disease. They hope the cattle can be the source of herds that can provide dairy products, gelatin and other products free of the brain-destroying disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the researchers said their cattle were healthy at the age of 20 months, and sperm from the males made normal embryos that were used to impregnate cows, although it is not certain yet that they could breed normally. The cattle lack the nervous system prions, a type of protein, that cause BSE and other related diseases such as scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as CJD, in humans, the researchers said. "(Prion-protein-negative) cattle could be a preferred source of a wide variety of bovine-derived products that have been extensively used in biotechnology, such as milk, gelatin, collagen, serum and plasma," they wrote in their report. Yoshimi Kuroiwa of Kirin Brewery Co. in Tokyo, Japan and colleagues made the cattle, known as knockouts because a specific gene has been "knocked" out of them, using a method they call gene targeting. "By knocking out the prion protein gene and producing healthy calves, our team has successfully demonstrated that normal cellular prion protein is not necessary for the normal development and survival of cattle. The cows are now nearly 2 years old and are completely healthy," said James Robl of Hematech, a South Dakota subsidiary of Kirin. "We anticipate that prion protein-free cows will be useful models to study prion disease processes in both animals and humans," Robl, an expert in cloning technology, said in a statement. Misfolded prion proteins are blamed for BSE and other, similar brain diseases. It is known that certain genetic variations make animals more susceptible to the diseases. BSE swept through British herds in the 1980s and people began developing an odd, early-onset form of CJD called variant CJD or vCJD a few years later. CJD normally affects one in a million people globally, usually the elderly, as it has a long incubation period. There is no cure and it is always fatal. As of November 2006, 200 vCJD patients were reported worldwide, including 164 patients in Britain, 21 in France, 4 in the Republic of Ireland, 3 in the United States, 2 in the Netherlands and 1 each in Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Spain. The disease may have first started to infect cattle when they were fed improperly processed remains of sheep, possibly sheep infected with scrapie. Although people are not known to have ever caught scrapie from eating sheep, BSE can be transmitted to humans. BSE occasionally occurs in cattle outside Britain although it is now rare. ADVERTISEMENT © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

surely, you are kidding

my trumpeter friend refuses gigs which require the wearing of lederhosen.

duke's in my solitude played by tsahar with string quartet and rhythm section is one of the very most beautiful pieces i have heard in a long long time. his sensitivity to every nuance of the song and his fellow musicians is goosebumps listen and relisten stuff. apparently this is an album with string quartet. great drinking music, as well.

US approves cloned meat for human consumption, yum! — SN @ 10:00 am The Register - 28th December 2006: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will declare today that meat from cloned animals is safe to eat. A safety assessment released on Thursday is expected to approve the entry of products from genetically identical cattle and other livestock into the human food chain. The FDA indicated which way the wind was blowing back in 2005. Now an article published by its scientists in the journal Theriogenology dated January 1 forms the scientific basis of the approval. Larisa Rudenko and John C Matheson wrote: “[The FDA] concludes that meat and milk from clones and their progeny is as safe to eat as corresponding products derived from animals produced using contemporary agricultural practices”. The pair said no special labelling of cloned meat would be needed, which has outraged some consumer groups. AP reports Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Centre for Food Safety, said: “Consumers are going to be having a product that has potential safety issues and has a whole load of ethical issues tied to it, without any labelling.” There has been a voluntary moratorium on cloned meat and milk in place for five years Stateside. Industrial scale ranchers have been keen to see the shackles off, as cloning would allow them to reproduce their tastiest, or biggest, or fastest growing individuals ad infinitum. The announcement is unlikely to have an immediate impact down at WalMart though. Attrition rates for cloning are still far too high for it to be economical to clone meat on an industrial scale.

Strange Exotic Dancers Spray on Latex Coverings The Associated Press Dec 28, 2006 7:14 AM (5 hrs ago) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Topless dancers in Alabama aren't really topless - dancers are spraying themselves with skin-colored latex. Under Alabama's strict law regulating exotic dancers, any skin that would normally be covered by a modest bikini must be swathed in an opaque covering. But the law doesn't specify what kind of material must be used, so, in the legal sense, a nylon swimsuit and spray-on latex are virtually the same. The state, which already was defending against a lawsuit filed by strip clubs challenging the law, says it reluctantly went along with the clubs rather than having a federal judge follow through on his threat to throw out the entire statue as unconstitutional. Fred Patterson, who works on the Birmingham's vice and narcotics squad, said some clubs were covering dancers with latex long before the agreement was filed. "You can get it that matches your skin color," said Patterson. "The only thing I hear from the girls is that it can be kind of irritating." Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

ARCADIA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - Ralph Stebbins, who won a $208 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot with his wife in April 2005 died Saturday. He was 43. Stebbins died at his home in Arcadia Township near Lapeer, Sheriff's Sgt. Andy Engster told the Times Herald of Port Huron. Family spokesman Robert Kolt said he suffered a heart attack. Ralph and his wife, Mary, elected to take a lump-sum payment of $124.7 million, less taxes. They could have chosen to spread $208 million in payments over 26 years. The couple used part of their winnings to buy a recreational vehicle and said they planned to buy a cow, pay off bills and build a garage to house a 1963 Corvette. Kolt said he was not aware that Stebbins had a history of heart problems or that he was feeling ill. Stebbins had previously worked for a well-digging company in Port Huron, where the couple formerly lived, while Mary Stebbins was a $7-per-hour retail sales clerk at a general merchandise store. Both quit their jobs after winning the jackpot and planned to help several other family members retire.

Published on Friday, August 5, 2005 by the Capital Times (Madison, WI) Another Radio Station Falls to Fox News by Dave Zweifel Earlier this year public radio's Garrison Keillor wrote a great piece for the Nation in which he lamented the passing of radio programming as we once knew it. He talked about the heyday of great radio stations like WCCO in Minneapolis, WOR in New York, KMOX in St. Louis and WGN in Chicago and how they were filled with down-home programming on everything from fishing and home repair to baseball games and live coverage of the local news. But, more importantly, the stations were about their hometowns. In smaller communities, Keillor recalled, you would hear the local livestock reports, the announcements of service club meetings and a listener calling to thank everybody for helping her find her lost dog Pookie. Every station had its own personality or two who could speak to the listeners like they were longtime close friends. Thus it was right here in Madison not all that long ago. There were strong local personalities on the air throughout the day and into the night, not just during the morning drive time, and they were certainly not foaming at the mouth with hate-filled political diatribe. Jim Mader, Clark Kellogg, George "Papa Hambone" Vukelich, "P.K." Powers and dozens of others were such familiar voices, with whom listeners identified and actually considered friends. But, as Keillor pointed out, the deregulation of radio was terribly tough on what he called "good neighbor" radio. Texas-based Clear Channel and others began gobbling up all those little money-making stations and homogenized their content to make even more money. So Rush is on everywhere. On many of the FM stations, the same music fills the air. An iconoclast like Hambone no longer exists. This all came to mind earlier this week when WIBA/AM, one of those Clear Channel properties, announced it was switching its longtime affiliation with CBS radio news to Fox News. The station manager, Jeff Tyler, chalked it all up to "some issues with CBS' credibility," as if Dan Rather had something to do with CBS radio. The real reason, of course, is that Fox News - Tyler should check its credibility - is cheaper. And that's all that matters. So now all of Clear Channel's stations in Madison, except WXXM, which will continue with CNN News, will be broadcasting Fox News. Keillor, incidentally, had an answer in that Nation article for why huge numbers of right-wingers appear on those chain-owned radio stations while liberals are hard to find. "It's simple," he said. "Republicans are in need of affirmation, they don't feel comfortable in America and they crave listening to people who think like them. Liberals actually enjoy living in a free society; tuning in to hear an echo is not our idea of a good time." Dave Zweifel has been editor of The Capital Times since 1983. A native of New Glarus, Wis. and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his life-long goal was to be the editor of this newspaper. © 2005 Capital Times

Walls gives ex-Buckeye Ron Springs the greatest of gifts By JAIME ARON AP Sports Writer Having grown up in Dallas, Everson Walls thought he knew his way around town. Then he started playing for the Cowboys, and a third-year running back who grew up in Virginia showed him how it was done. Ron Springs taught the rookie cornerback where to go for free this and discount that. In return, Walls did the driving and, better yet, introduced Springs to a terrific, cheap late-night food joint -- his mom's kitchen. ADVERTISEMENT Kindred spirits only a few years apart, they quickly built a friendship that went way beyond being teammates. It was so much like big brother and little brother Springs became a regular at Walls family gatherings. By the time Springs left the Cowboys in 1985, their wives already were good friends. Eventually, so were their kids. Everyone gets along so well they've taken family vacations together -- like the time all eight piled into one Land Cruiser and drove from Dallas to Orlando through a rainstorm so blinding they missed their destination. Springs is the godfather of Walls' oldest daughter, and Walls received the same honor for Springs' youngest. And, living up to the old saying "your family is my family," Springs recently spoke at the funeral of Walls' father-in-law. That's close, right? Well they're about to get a lot closer: Walls has agreed to donate a kidney to help Springs, a diabetic, regain the quality of life he's lacked for nearly three years. The disease already has forced the amputation of Springs' right foot and the big and middle toes on his left foot. His rotting kidney has knotted his hands, bound him to a wheelchair and forced him to get up at 5 a.m. three times a week to endure several hours of dialysis treatments. Walls' kidney is expected to be transplanted in March. Once the healthy one takes over, Springs can look forward to his hands uncurling, ditching his wheelchair and never going to dialysis again. "This man has got to love me in order to give up something. He's taking some risk," Springs said. "It's something you can't explain, but something that I will always think about every day for the rest of my life. It's like getting a new battery in a car. I'll be able to be back to basically almost 100 percent normal." "A piece of me is going to be inside him and hopefully giving him a lot more life than he would've had otherwise," Walls said. "To me, friendship is unconditional." Springs grew up in Williamsburg, Va., a short drive from several black colleges where friends and relatives played football. He followed the teams closely, but picked Ohio State for himself. Adept at running, receiving and blocking, the Cowboys drafted him in the fifth round in 1979, a few months after Tom Landry and Roger Staubach won their second Super Bowl. Springs became a starter in the same backfield as Tony Dorsett in his third season. At training camp that same year, he got to know Walls, an undrafted rookie from Grambling, and his roommate, another black-college alum. "Ron would always come over and give us a bunch of crap about black colleges being from the Negro Leagues," Walls said. "That's how we started joking around and he started hanging out with us." During the season, they became regulars at each other's houses. Springs was married with no kids, while Walls was living with his mom and dating his future wife. "You kind of hung with the people who did what you did," Springs said. "We were professional beer drinkers and margarita drinkers and crawfish eaters." In the summer of 1983, Springs organized a different kind of fundraiser. The beneficiary was Walls, grossly underpaid for someone who had led the league in interceptions and made the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons. (Walls had 11 interceptions in 1981; nobody has had more than 10 since. Alas, he also was the cornerback who dove in vain when Dwight Clark made "The Catch" to send San Francisco past Dallas and into the Super Bowl in the January 1982 NFC Championship game.) As a locker-room lawyer and the de facto leader of the "Ghetto Row" clique, Springs talked Walls into telling team officials he was "mentally frustrated" and had to retire, a word chosen to avoid being fined for holding out. He instructed Walls to go into hiding, except for once-a-day calls to Springs. Walls resurfaced to sign a contract that paid about four times what he was supposed to make, with a hefty signing bonus. "The guys figured out that me and him had concocted this," Springs said. "But he got a nice new contract and we celebrated pretty good." Springs went to Tampa Bay for two seasons, then retired. Walls lasted with the Cowboys through Jimmy Johnson's disastrous first season, then joined the New York Giants in 1990, the year Bill Parcells guided them to their second Super Bowl title. The week of the big game, Walls and linebacker Lawrence Taylor -- who played Little League and high school ball with Springs in Williamsburg -- spent hours trying to persuade Springs to join them in Tampa. Once he gave in, Springs drove all night, despite feeling the effects of a flu bug that wound up keeping him in his hotel room on game day. "I was happy to see one of us finally win a Super Bowl," Springs said. After giving up football, Springs stayed in good shape by playing basketball. But he was getting tired easily, which didn't make sense. A checkup revealed he had Type 2 diabetes, the most common kind. He was 34. "I just kept working out and denying it for a while," he said. "Then, all of a sudden, it was attacking me worse than it did most people." In 2004, at age 47, Springs went on dialysis and was added to the national transplant waiting list. The next year, he lost his foot, then began feeling the muscles ball up on his right arm, then the left. Given his age, overall health and degenerating condition, he was told it would take about four years for his number to come up -- unless he could find a donor on his own. Springs immediately ruled out his children, including his oldest son, Shawn, a cornerback (Walls' position) who also starred as a Buckeye and now plays for the Washington Redskins. Springs also has a 21-year-old daughter, Ayra, who soon will graduate Oklahoma State and Ashley, a senior in high school. Because diabetes is hereditary, he worries they eventually will be afflicted. He couldn't bear the thought of taking a kidney his kids may end up needing for themselves or to donate to their kids if one of them develops the disease. Plenty of friends and relatives offered to be tested, but being a donor involves far more than want-to. Requirements start with being in good health and, in Springs' case, having type-O blood. Springs let only two people try: a niece and a nephew. Both were perfect matches. But she got pregnant, and his kidney turned out not to be strong enough. "Instead of being down on himself after two failed attempts, he wanted to just stay active to keep his mind and body strong, so we started working out together," Walls said. "As we started working out together, I said, 'Well, look, I know my blood type is the same as his. Why not give it a shot and see what happens?"' "I never tried to influence him," Springs said. "If he was going to do it, I wanted him to do it out of the love he had for me." Springs warned Walls of all the painful, time-consuming tests and paperwork ahead of him. He also prepped him for a 500-question psychiatric evaluation. "That's the one I thought he'd fail," Springs said, cackling. The process was so grueling Walls became more resolved, especially after talking to doctors, donors and transplant recipients. "I wasn't going to go through all of this for nothing," Walls said. "My mind was pretty much made up that if I was going to be a complete match, then I was going to do it." Informal confirmation came several weeks ago. Thinking the donation was more of a done deal than it was, Shawn Springs shared the good news with a Redskins beat writer, even saying the transplant could happen "any day now." Now comfortable sharing their story, the guys are sitting on a sofa in Springs' den. Two framed No. 20 Cowboys jerseys hang on a wall high above them, and eight game balls are on a ledge across the room. Upstairs, 18-year-old Cameron Walls and Ashley Springs are hanging out. The camaraderie among the former teammates is evident from the time Walls lifts Springs from his wheelchair and threatens to drop him onto the sofa. Throughout a 1 1/2-hour interview, arguments ensue about who had various ideas first (score it 1-1) and several instances of finishing each other's sentences. More often, however, they build on what the other is saying, like on the topic of the greater good their story will serve. "What we want to parlay from this is the ability for more people to donate," Springs said. "That's the key." "When something happens with athletes, it always brings the most recognition to a certain issue," adds Walls. Sitting nearby, Shelah Zmigrosky loves what she's hearing. As president of Kidney Texas Inc., she understands how many people can benefit from spreading their story. The organization already got a $382,000 boost this year through an event at which Springs and Dorsett served as honorary co-chairs. Zmigrosky is hoping people become inspired to get tested for diabetes and become donors. As both men note, blacks especially need to know the importance of diabetes testing and organ donation. Of the 69,256 people awaiting kidney transplants in the U.S., 24,100 are black, more than double the next ethnic group, according to the Southwest Transplant Alliance. The crux of the problem is diabetes afflicts blacks at a higher rate than whites, yet fewer minority donors exist. Demand for organs far outweighs the supply, which is why living donations are so important. After all, taking Springs off the waiting list will move up someone else. About 4,000 people in need of a kidney die each year before their name is called. "We need to get this right," Springs said. "They've got it down so well, it's like going to Quick Lube and getting an oil change." Only two other professional athletes are known to have donated a kidney: Greg Ostertag, who was playing for the Utah Jazz when he did it for his sister; and NBA Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson, who did it for his daughter. "Everywhere I go, people are calling me a hero," Walls said. "Some people are thinking it's already happened. I just tell them to keep us in their prayers." Springs half-jokingly said he wanted his new kidney by Christmas, but understands business obligations have Walls tied up until March. No date has been announced, and they're cautious about revealing one because they're tentative until the final minute. If the donor or recipient is even slightly ill, doctors will reschedule. "He's not only saving my life, he's doing a justice for me," Springs said. "He's letting me live a better life. I can only be grateful for that."

much more enjoyable during the evening and night

now offering gorgeous gorgeous(and varied) holiday treats http://www.radioclassique.fr/(in 128k)

jessica williams-----portraits

territory band 5, frequency. roscoe, abrams, lewis trio those are the places it should be going.

i particularly love 'through the night' and 'choral evensong'. heard a fabulous andrew hill concert with full orchestra a couple years ago, and, of course, the proms every fall.

i particularly love 'through the night' and choral evensong.